


All These Demons

by gallagherfamilyreunion (PrincessPeach)



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessPeach/pseuds/gallagherfamilyreunion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if Mandy Milkovich's life wasn't complicated enough without freaking vampires thrown into the mix. (Buffy-inspired Shameless AU because obviously)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chosen (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating for mentions of child abuse/domestic violence in this chapter with future occurrences likely; I will warn prior to each chapter that includes these themes. Also includes non-graphic supernatural violence, strong language and smoking.

Mandy inhaled deeply and the orange glow at the end of her cigarette intensified slightly, but didn’t shed any real light in the overpowering darkness of the cemetery at midnight.

Not that it mattered, really. She found the graveyard’s stillness and shadows comforting, which was why she’d come there in the middle of the fucking night to begin with.  

The nightmares—she could admit to herself, here among the dead, if not to anyone else ever—were starting to get to her. She’d dealt with bad dreams for most of her life, ever since the first time her father laid a hand on her, but these ones were different. They seemed more real somehow, which was absolutely crazy because they made fuck-all sense. There was no continuous theme or narrative, just a confusing, chaotic mess of sounds and images: strange chanting, lapping flames, and grotesque, almost demon-like faces smiling and laughing creepily. With an occasional cameo by actual creep Terry Milkovich thrown in for good measure—even in her subconscious there was no escape from the vile monster of her childhood.

Like always, Mandy had woken up in a wide-eyed panic, heart pounding wildly against her ribcage. She told herself that they were just nightmares, that she was in no actual danger from her father for at least the next 2 to 4 years while he did his time, that her only concerns at the moment were regular, manageable ones, like how to pay the fucking electric bill this month and whether it was even worth it to endure the two remaining years in CPS that stood between her and graduation.

So yeah, she had enough on her plate, and yet she couldn’t shake the primal horror of those nightmares. A nerve-calming smoke at her favorite personal hideout seemed infinitely preferable to lying in her sweat-soaked sheets, so there she was.

Only suddenly something shifted, and the cemetery wasn’t a calm, peaceful haven anymore.

Something was Wrong.

Mandy had no idea what it as, or how she knew it, but she could feel it in every bone of her body.

“Hello?” she ventured, voice sounding much steadier than she felt, every nerve on high alert.

Just as she had convinced herself that her imagination was getting the best of her, from the dark shadows emerged an even darker figure. It was clothed in black and the night concealed its features entirely, but Mandy didn’t need to see its face to know that it was hungry. For her.

And not in the usual sense. Like, literally.

Everything that followed was the result of pure reflexes and some base instinct Mandy didn’t know she possessed: It happened so fast that she had zero time to process it consciously. The creature lunged forward, and in one fluid motion Mandy flipped backwards off the headstone where she had been seated, landing lightly on her feet behind it. The vaguely human-shaped thing growled and bared impressive fangs; as it was posturing, she took the opportunity to leap atop the headstone and deliver a swift, hard kick to the head, connecting squarely with its jaw.

“Ow!” said the creature. “What the fuck?!”

Which surprised Mandy for two reasons: First, because it was capable of speech at all, and second, because it had a very distinctive and familiar South Side accent. But this small oddity was definitely less pressing than the fact that whatever-it-was, was definitely trying to fucking kill her.

She jumped off her perch, landing in a crouch and immediately rolling away for no good reason other than that it seemed like the right thing to do. The correctness of that decision was confirmed a second later, when the creature took another diving lunge and landed exactly where she had just been.

Regaining her bearings, Mandy felt a wave of relief as she suddenly remembered the butterfly knife tucked into the waistband of her jeans; she pulled it out and spun it open to let this motherfucking asshole know what he was in for.

But her display had the opposite of its intended effect: Inexplicably, the thing started to fucking laugh. It beckoned for her to approach, still grinning, and after a moment’s hesitation she rushed forward and jammed the blade as hard as she could into the soft tissue of its lower abdomen.

Up close and personal now, she stared the creature down as she gave the knife a vicious twist, feeling deep satisfaction at the look of agony in its eerie yellow eyes. Then its expression changed, a mischievous smile slowly spreading across its ridged, demonic face. Before Mandy could react, it reached up a hand and slapped her across the face with impossible strength. The blow sent her flying at least ten feet and she landed hard on her back, mere inches from a headstone that could have easily cracked her skull open.

The creature approached slowly; Mandy wasn’t sure if she had managed to injure it or if it was just basking in its victory. Still trying to catch her breath from the fall, she could only scramble backwards in the brush, hands desperately groping for anything she might be able to use to defend herself.

“Oh man,” the thing said with a chuckle—so definitely just gloating, then—“the gang’s never gonna believe I bagged a Slayer. Maybe I should bring ‘em a souvenir, huh? Couple of fingers? Or maybe just your scalp,” it finished as it launched forward to attack.

At that moment Mandy’s fingers closed on a short, thick branch among the fallen leaves and undergrowth. With the creature already rushing her, there was no time to debate whether the stick would make an adequate weapon; it was simply all she had. She brought it up to her chest as the thing made a final, flying leap for the kill, squeezing her eyes shut tightly in preparation for the agony of what were almost certainly her final moments.

And then she heard a gasp and a strange gurgle, and cracked her eyes open to find that the fucking monster had impaled itself neatly on the end of her stake. Before she could even fully process what she was seeing, the body turned to tiny bits of dust and floated away on the night breeze, leaving barely a trace.

Mandy sat frozen in shock for several seconds before her instincts kicked back in and she ran like a terror all the way home.

* * *

Only once Mandy was back in her room, with the door locked securely behind her, did she allow the emotions she had been suppressing during the long—but surprisingly not exhausting—run to wash over her. Crouched in a ball in the middle of her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, she let out a series of choked sobs as the night’s events replayed in her mind. Along with them came a series of disturbing questions: What the fuck was that thing, and why had it tried to kill her? How exactly had she been able to stop it?

And why did that word the creature had spoken, “Slayer,” fill her with such a sense of dread?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so excited about this OMG; hopefully you are too? IDK let me know with your comments/kudos + share [this post](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com/post/90097053225/all-these-demons) on tumblr if you like? Sorry I'm really needy. Please note that this is a Buffy-inspired AU, *not* a crossover so don't be expecting Spike or Cordelia or anyone to be popping up out of nowhere. Also don't be nervous about/discouraged by the "?" for number of chapters; I've got the whole thing mostly plotted out as a 12-episode "season" if you will, but each section may be broken up into shorter chapters for enhanced readability.


	2. Chosen (Part Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to popular belief, not all Watchers are nerdy British dudes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's pretty tame; some language/sexual innuendo/mentions of supernatural violence.

The sun filtering through her thin bedroom curtains awoke Mandy mid-morning, and she enjoyed a blissful moment of drowsy amnesia before she remembered exactly why she felt so exhausted.

But the events of the previous night seemed pretty much impossible in the daylight; she even managed to convince herself that her nightmares were simply escalating until she got up and caught her reflection in the small mirror on top her dresser. The bruise blossoming black and blue on her left cheek, exactly where she had been struck, provided undeniable evidence of the fight.

“Fuck,” said Mandy, wincing as she gingerly applied a layer of foundation to the bruised area.

The finished effect was pretty unconvincing, she knew, but all she could do was brush her hair forward to cover it as much as possible and hope for the best. Throwing on an old, oversized T-shirt and (mostly) clean pair of jeans, she opened the door to venture back out into the world with a very important mission in mind: Breakfast.

Unusually for a Saturday morning, the other denizens of the Milkovich household were already up and about when Mandy shuffled sleepily into the kitchen.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” teased the youngest brother, Mickey, barely looking up from sorting what appeared to be stolen mail.

“Fuck off, douchebag,” she replied automatically as she rummaged through the cupboards in search of something–anything–edible.

“Hey, what happened to your face?” asked the slightly more observant Iggy, which prompted the other two to stop what they were doing and look up in concern as well.

“Nothing,” Mandy insisted as she continued her fruitless search. “Jesus Christ, can’t you assholes at least throw out the boxes after you finish eating all the fucking Pop-Tarts?”

There was a round of protests from the boys as she hurled a series of empty blue boxes across the table for emphasis, scattering papers everywhere. But Mandy was distracted from her hunger-induced anger by a short, sharp knock at the front door.

“Seriously?” she said in exasperation when none of the other three gave any indication that they’d heard the knock. “Fine, I’ll get it. Don’t get up, really.”

Mandy made her way through the cluttered living room to the door, but when she opened it there was no one to be found. The entire street was deserted, in fact, one of those rare occasions when the neighborhood seemed deceptively calm and peaceful. She was about to write the whole thing off as a bad prank when she happened to glance down at the porch and saw a crisp white envelope laying facedown.

That was weird enough in itself, but when she picked it up and flipped it over to find her name written in an elegant, old-fashioned script, her skin began to crawl.

She considered taking it to her brothers to see what they could make of it, but eliminated that option when commotion from the kitchen and a quick glance back inside revealed that the mail scam had regressed to some kind of paper snowball fight.  So yeah, probably best to just deal with it herself.

Mandy ripped the envelope open and removed a square of paper, holding her breath as she unfolded it just in case it was another bizarre murder attempt and full of like, anthrax or something.

But no mysterious white powder was visible, just a piece of pink stationary with a floral border and an address written in the same graceful calligraphy. Mandy stared at it and frowned: This was fucking weird.

“Who was that?” asked Mickey, extracting himself from the chaos in the other room to come investigate.

“No one,” said Mandy. “Do you know who lives here?” she added, showing him the perplexing note.

“Oh, yeah. That’s Batty Sheila’s place.”

* * *

Standing inside the immaculate Jackson house and clutching the plastic bag containing her sneakers, Mandy could definitely see where the “Batty” nickname came from.

“You can just, um, leave your shoes by the door,” Sheila suggested as she flitted around the living room, unnecessarily fluffing the decorative pillows and brushing away nonexistent dust. “Sorry I didn’t have time to clean… Such short notice…”

Innumerable questions swirled in Mandy’s head, but one in particular loomed large over everything.

“You don’t have any breakfast, do you?”

“Oh,” said Sheila, stopping short as the question seemed to focus her nervous energy. “Sure, we have breakfast. What would you like?”

Mandy shrugged. “Eggs?”

“Anything specific?” asked Sheila as she made a beeline for the kitchen. “Sunny-side up, Eggs Benedict… Ooh, how about an omelet?”

"Um, whatever's easiest."

“Sweetie, when you’ve been cooking as long as I have, it’s all easy,” Sheila assured her. “I never met an egg I couldn’t crack,” she added, chuckling at her own joke.

Mandy smiled politely, examining the bowl of fresh fruit that sat atop the counter. “I could just have an apple, actually,” she said, feeling slightly guilty for imposing.

“Nonsense,” Sheila insisted. “Anyway, those are fake. Just have a seat and I’ll whip something up in a jiffy.”

Mandy complied, pulling out the chair at the end of the dining room table and trying to remember the last time she’d heard anyone use the word “jiffy.”

But she instantly forgot about Sheila’s odd speech patterns when she  was presented with a plate of the most delicious-looking eggs, bacon and hash browns she'd ever seen.

“I know it’s not much,” Sheila apologized, taking a seat as Mandy chowed down gratefully. “If I’d had just a little warning I could have made something special, but I guess that’s the nature of this kind of thing…”

“Okay, sorry,” Mandy cut in, hunger now satisfied enough for her to focus on the bigger picture. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh shit, I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I,” Sheila suddenly realized. She stood and cleared her throat, hands smoothing the front of her slightly old-fashioned floral dress.

“Mandy Milkovich, it is my privilege and duty to reveal to you these sacred and ancient secrets, as they have been passed down through many generations of Watchers and their charges,” she recited formally, eyes turned upward as she recalled her script. “Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone—”

“Mom? What’s going on?” came a voice from the staircase leading upstairs, and a pretty blonde girl about Mandy’s age descended.

“Dammit, Karen,” said Sheila. “I was in the middle of a whole thing.”

“Oh, you mean the, ‘Into every generation a Slayer is born,’ thing,” the girl said mockingly, rolling her eyes. “What a bunch of cheesy bullshit.”

Sheila sighed, realizing that the moment for dramatic revelations was over. “Well, this is going smoothly, isn’t it?” she asked rhetorically. “Karen, this is Mandy; Mandy, this is my daughter, Karen.”

“Hey,” said Mandy, not really sure what to make of the newcomer.

“Hey Mandy,” Karen replied, sitting down and helping herself to a piece of crisp bacon from Mandy’s plate. “Hope you’re ready for your life to get a whole lot more interesting.”

“See, that’s the thing,” Mandy said. She felt like she knew where this was headed, and she didn’t like it one bit. “I’m not really looking for ‘interesting’ right now. So thanks for breakfast and everything, but I gotta go.”

“Those nightmares aren’t gonna go away, you know,” said Karen as Mandy headed for the door, stopping her dead in her tracks.

Mandy turned and looked her straight in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But Karen wasn’t buying it. “Oh please, you’re not as good a liar as you think you are. The dreams are gonna keep happening, and they’re gonna keep attacking, whether you walk out that door or not.”

“And who exactly are ‘they’?” Mandy finally asked the question that had been haunting her, afraid to know the answer.

“Aww, c’mon, you don’t even want to guess?”

“What I want is for someone to tell me what the fuck is going on,” Mandy insisted, unable to keep from raising her voice.

There was a moment of tense silence as Karen and Sheila just stared at her.

“Fair enough,” Karen said finally. “Mom, should we show her the basement?”

“Oh yes, I think that would be a good idea,” Sheila agreed. The two of them headed back toward the kitchen and disappeared down some type of trap door; after a moment’s hesitation, Mandy followed.

“What is this, some kind of kinky sex dungeon?” she wondered as she made her way down the creaky wooden steps.

“No,” said Sheila, “I learned the hard way that it’s best to keep the sex toys separate from the actual weapons,” she revealed, earning a disgusted look from Karen.

And weaponry was definitely the theme of the room, although it looked more like a museum than anything that Mandy would consider an effective arsenal, with ancient-looking swords, battle axes and other strange-looking gear hung all along the wood-paneled walls.

“What is this shit?” asked Mandy.

“These,” explained Sheila, “are the tools of the Slayer. And this is your training room.”

“The Slayer. And that’s me,” Mandy said, still not really believing the words even as she spoke them.

“Yes, as I was explaining before we were so rudely interrupted,” said Sheila, looking pointedly at Karen, “according to ancient prophecy, only the Slayer wields the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness, to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.”

"Vampires," Mandy repeated flatly.

"And demons."

"You've got to be shitting me."

"You staked one last night," Karen pointed out. "I think we're past the, 'you've got to be kidding me' point, don't you?"

Mandy had to admit that she had a point; it was hard to argue with the bruise that the thing—the vampire, apparently—had left on her face. So she decided to ask about the other aspect of this whole thing that was bugging her. "Okay, you said there’s only one Slayer at a time, right?”

“Yes," Sheila confirmed.

“So the last one like, quit.”

“Um, you don’t really get to quit,” Karen explained. “It’s sort of a permanent thing.”

“So someone died,” Mandy paraphrased bluntly. “And now I have to do it until I die.”

Neither Karen nor Sheila said anything or met her gaze, which was pretty much an answer in itself.

“Oh, fuck this,” said Mandy, turning to make her exit.

“Mandy, wait,” said Karen, rushing forward and grabbing her wrist unexpectedly. “I know it seems like it sucks, but there are some cool parts too.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Mandy asked as she removed Karen’s hand from her arm. “The thrilling possibility of getting attacked by a fucking vampire at any moment? Or the guarantee of a violent, premature death?”

“Well, there’s the super-strength, lightning-fast reflexes and endurance, for one thing. You’ve probably noticed those already. And um, I can’t speak to this personally, but–” here Karen leaned in and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “–there's a rumor that one of the side effects of Slayerdom is enhanced sexual stamina.”

Karen stepped back and shrugged innocently; Mandy rolled her eyes but made no further movement toward the exit.

“Mandy, it’s your destiny,” Sheila chimed in with a pleading look, as if she needed a reminder that she apparently didn’t have any say in the matter.

Growing up with the family she had, in the neighborhood where she lived, she’d always figured she was totally fucked anyway—she just hadn’t known the exact manner in which life would end up screwing her over. But fuck it; at least this way maybe she’d get to kick some ass along the way.

“Shit,” she said, letting out a long sigh of resignation. “Okay.”

* * *

After what felt like years but was really mere(?) hours of lecturing about the history and responsibilities of the Slayer, Mandy was already beginning to regret her choice. Not that it was really a choice at all, which was the main thing that kept her seated on the overstuffed sofa in the Jackson living room, listening to Sheila’s disorganized monologue.

That, and the seemingly endless supply of chocolate chip cookies and lemonade.

“Mandy, this is important,” said Sheila, sensing her attention drift.

“Yeah, I got it,” Mandy insisted. “I’m the Slayer, I slay. You’re the Watcher, you stay here and keep an eye out from your little Bat Cave. Can I call this the Bat Cave? I’m gonna call it the Bat Cave. Still don’t know what your part in all of this is, though,” she directed to Karen, who was perched on the coordinating armchair providing a (pretty entertaining) running commentary.

“I just like to watch,” Karen said with a suggestive grin.

“Okay,” said Sheila, “how about we switch gears and do some physical training?”

Which was the first thing she'd mentioned that actually sparked Mandy’s interest. “You mean like, with those swords and shit?”

“Perhaps we’ll work up to the swords,” Sheila suggested. “But yes.”

“Fuck yeah, let’s do it,” said Mandy. “I gotta go out for a smoke first, though.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t be–” Sheila began to say, but stopped short when she saw the deadly look in Mandy’s eye.

“Wanna come?” Mandy asked Karen on an impulse.

“Um, no thanks,” she replied. “Asthma.”

Mandy shrugged indifferently and stepped outside, returning a few minutes later feeling refreshed and ready for action. She wasn’t sure if it was the Slayer thing or just the placebo effect, but she definitely seemed to have more energy than usual. She headed back down to the basement, where a  large red mat had been laid out on top of the concrete floor.

“Okay,” said Sheila, who had changed into a gray sweat suit that looked like it was straight out of an ‘80s boxing movie, complete with a shiny silver whistle around her neck. “We’ll start with some basic blocking techniques. Karen has graciously volunteered to act as your training partner.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Karen assured her, dressed in a much more decade-appropriate tank top and gym shorts.

Mandy scoffed. “I think I can handle myself in a fight, thanks.”

And then suddenly Karen was rushing at her; it looked like she was aiming for a blow to the head so Mandy swerved out of the way, but then Karen executed a swift leg sweep that knocked her off her feet. The next thing she knew she was lying flat on her back, Karen pinning her down with a smug smile.

“We’ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up on tumblr/share [this post](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com/post/90278689455/all-these-demons) if you like :)


	3. Chosen (Part Three)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Supermassive Black Hole by Muse plays in the background*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for language/supernatural violence.

“Please?”

“Oh, I don’t know, usually we don’t—”

“Usually your Slayer’s not coming in with a lifetime’s worth of practice fucking shit up, right?”

“Well…” Sheila hesitated, still not convinced that letting Mandy go on vampire patrol after one day’s worth of training was such a good idea.

“Come on, Sheila,” Mandy pleaded earnestly. “I can take Karen with me as backup.”

“Good, yes, by all means let’s endanger my only daughter as well,” Sheila replied sarcastically.

“It won’t be that dangerous, Mom,” said Karen, immediately jumping on board with the idea. “We’ll stay out of anything we can’t handle, and just report back any, you know, suspicious activity.”

“Alright, fine,” Sheila caved. “But not too long. And if you see anything fishy come right back, okay?”

Mandy couldn’t help but grin; if nothing else it would be nice to get out after being cooped up all day. “Deal.”

* * *

The idea of going back to the cemetery made Mandy a little nervous, but as Karen point out, it was the place where they were most likely to actually see some action. The night was crisp and clear; at first the pair stalked silently among the headstones, slowly and cautiously, but there was no immediate sign of trouble and secret agent-mode got boring pretty fast.

“So how come I’ve never seen you around school?” wondered Mandy.

“Homeschooled,” Karen replied.

“That must be… interesting.”

“Yeah, my mom can be a bit much sometimes,” Karen admitted. “But she’s actually pretty smart.”

“Well I fucking hope so,” said Mandy as she lit up a cigarette. “My life kind of depends on it.”

“Hey, can I bum one of those?”

“What about your asthma?”

“Don’t tell my mom,” Karen replied, holding out her hand hopefully.

Mandy stopped short. “Hang on, I don’t want my partner to be incapacitated by her shitty lungs. Fuck, should I even be smoking this around you?”

“It’s fine,” Karen said, and let out a heavy sigh. “Shit, I thought I would last longer than this.”

“What are you talking about?”

Karen was silent for a moment as she considered her options. “Okay, this is gonna sound weird, but I’m sort of a vampire,” she confessed.

At which point Mandy couldn’t help but smirk. “I knew it,” she said.

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Mandy replied in a “no shit” tone of voice, “how could I not? I’ve been thinking about nothing but fucking vampires all day, you know. I mean,” she added, noticing the innuendo in her statement when she saw Karen’s raised eyebrows, “fucking _vampires_ , not _fucking_ vampires. Obviously.”

“If you say so,” Karen teased. “I’m only half-vampire anyway. It’s a long story. Basically I’d burst into flame if I went out in the sunlight, but I don’t have an insatiable thirst for human blood. So there are pros and cons.”

“Would I be able to stake you?” Mandy asked.

“Pretty sure a large wooden pointy thing to the heart would kill me regardless, although I’m not sure why you’d want to do that.”

“I dunno, if you turned out to be evil or something.”

“Jesus. Always looking on the bright side, huh?” Karen said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well it’s better than the never-ending disappointment of…” Mandy trailed off as a flickering light in the distance caught her eye. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah,” Karen confirmed.

Mandy put out her cigarette and the two of them crept slowly toward the mausoleum that seemed to be the source of the light. When they got as close as they dared, they crouched behind a large, weathered headstone and waited for signs of activity. From their viewing angle and distance they couldn’t see much of what was going on inside the crypt, just the orange, flickering glow of a fire and three or four black-robed figures.

“Think they’re up to something?” Mandy asked in a whisper.

“No, it’s probably just a graveyard knitting club,” Karen whispered back. “Of course they’re up to something.”

“Wait, what’s that noise?”

“Dunno, sounds like some sort of chanting,” Karen suggested, her eyes still trained on the crypt.

“Not that,” said Mandy. “It sounds like someone’s…” she paused, a sick horror settling in her stomach as she realized what the sound was, “breathing.”

She and Karen both turned slowly to look behind them, and Mandy suppressed a primal instinct to scream at the sight of the towering, black-shrouded vampire glowering at her from a few feet away.

The vampire let out a loud, ferocious growl as it rushed her, but Mandy was ready. She braced herself against the headstone and kicked out hard with both legs, connecting solidly with its midsection and sending it stumbling backwards. While it was still trying to regain its balance she made her counterattack, plunging her stake swiftly and decisively into it its heart.

“Very nice,” said an impressed Karen as the vampire disintegrated like it had never been there. “I’m guessing that guy’s friends heard his battle cry; wanna bail?”

Mandy nodded, adrenaline coursing through her veins from the brief encounter. “Let’s go.”

* * *

For the first time in recent memory, Mandy slept soundly and dream-free. She woke up the next morning to the persistent buzzing of her phone, considered tossing it out the window to enjoy a few more moments’ rest, and then flipped it open to find a new message from Ian Gallagher.

_Wanna hang out?_   it read. _Can't deal w/family bullshit rn._ _  
_

_Sorry, busy_ , Mandy responded. _I’ll explain later. Hang in there,_  she added, feeling a twinge of guilt about ignoring him for the past couple of days.

She was pretty sure that somewhere along the line Sheila had mentioned the importance of not talking to anyone about anything Slayer-related, ever, but fuck that. There was no way she wasn’t going to tell her fake boyfriend-slash-best friend about this kind of major development, and it wasn’t like she could get fired or anything. Could she? 

* * *

When Mandy arrived back at the Jackson house it became clear that Sheila definitely hadn’t been joking about knowing her way around the kitchen. A full spread that made the previous day’s breakfast look like prison food was laid out on the dining room table: French crepes, sausages, freshly-baked blueberry muffins and some type of egg casserole were among the delicious offerings on display.

“A girl could get used to this, you know,” she said, eagerly helping herself—this vampire-killing thing was definitely affecting her appetite.

“Just consider it a thank you for not getting killed last night,” Sheila said modestly. “You’re officially out of the running for shortest-tenured Slayer ever, so congratulations.”

“Um, thanks,” Mandy said, not really sure how to respond.

“God, do we have to talk about death all the time?” asked Karen, striding down the stairs to join them. “It’s so fucking depressing.”

“Well, it is a very serious possibility,” Sheila pointed out. “The Slayer’s responsibilities are not to be taken lightly.”

“No shit,” Karen said. “I think she gets it.”

Reluctant to choose sides in the mother-daughter argument, Mandy opted to change the subject completely. “So what do you think those vampires were doing last night?” she wondered. “It seemed like some kind of weird cult shit.”

“Now that is a very good question,” said Sheila. “We should really consult the ancient texts.”

“Ancient texts, so you have a library or something around here too?”

In response, Sheila held up her laptop. “The Watchers’ Council went paperless as of last fall,” she explained as she cleared a space on the table for the computer and flipped it open. “Alright, let’s see.” She squinted at the screen and began to type painfully slowly, using only her index fingers to stab at each key.

“Here, let me,” said Karen, her patience quickly exhausted. She slid the laptop over in front of her; Sheila took a breath to protest but then thought better of it.

“You’ll want to cross-reference any cycle-based mystical events with the geographic location,” she suggested instead. “Along with what they looked like, what they were wearing, and any guesses you can make about what they were singing or chanting. Was it monophonic or polyphonic; were there overtones? Then of course you’ll have to factor in the phases of the moon and adjust for—”

“Found it,” Karen interrupted.

“What? How?” asked Sheila.

“I googled ‘black robe vampires creepy chanting’ and this YouTube clip came up,” she explained. Mandy and Sheila stood to crowd around the screen, and then Karen hit play. “It all fits: the fire, the crypt, the outfits. That sounds like the chant we heard, right?”

“Yeah,” Mandy confirmed. “But what are they doing?”

“According to the description, this is rare footage of a summoning ritual to call forth an ancient and terrible evil spirit called a Cornocen,” Karen read, not sounding overly intimidated by the notion. “Whatever. The real question is, how does this video have almost 16,000 hits? People are into some weird shit.”

“Oh no,” said Sheila, gazing off into space rather oddly.

“Hey, whatever floats your boat, I say,” Karen replied, misinterpreting her mother’s reaction.

“What? No, not that,” Sheila clarified. “I think this spirit thing is bad news.”

“So, I’ll take care of it,” Mandy assured her. “What could be worse than vampires?”

“Not to freak you out or anything,” Karen said, “but there are a lot of things that are worse than vampires.”

“If I recall correctly, this particular evil spirit is a bit of a doozy,” Sheila elaborated. “Extremely powerful, bent on wreaking havoc on a massive scale, practically invulnerable once it takes corporeal form.”

“Corporeal?” Mandy repeated in confusion.

“Once it takes over a body,” Karen paraphrased.

“Right,” Sheila confirmed. “Fortunately it’s a pretty complicated process to summon it from the underworld and whatnot, so I think we might have some time. Hold on, just let me check something…”

She hunched over the computer and brought up a new, slightly odd-looking search window, then laboriously typed in the spirit’s name.

“See?” she said, stepping aside so Karen and Mandy could view the relevant page on what the Gothic font at the top of the page identified as the Official Archives of the Council of Watchers (Electronic Beta Version 2.1). “Last night was just part one of the ritual; the actual summoning occurs at the same location 48 hours later.”

“So how do we stop it?” asked Mandy.

“Oh, there’s always a counterspell,” Sheila said confidently. “As long as we can find it in time; it could take hours or even days to—”

“Got it,” Karen interrupted again.

“Already?” Sheila asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, I clicked on the link that said ‘counterspells.’”

“Honey,” said Sheila, “you know I love you, but you’ve got to stop doing that.”

“What, knowing how to use a computer?”

“Well, no,” Sheila conceded, “of course not. But you don’t have to be so… smug about it.”

“I’m not being smug,” Karen insisted. “Was I being smug?” she asked Mandy.

“Um… I don’t think so, no.”

“There, see?” said Karen triumphantly.

“Okay, now that was smug,” Sheila pointed out.

“Yeah, it kinda was,” Mandy admitted.

“Oh, so you’re on her side now?” Karen asked, taking mock offense.

Mandy shrugged. “I just call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

“No I think you’re definitely on her side. I’ll remember this, Milkovich.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” said Sheila, putting an end to their playful bickering. “Why don’t we put that youthful energy to good use and do some training?”

* * *

After many hours’ worth of training (no real swords yet, but Mandy did get to try out a wooden practice blade, which was something) and strategy talk, Sheila declared that it was time to call it a day.  Karen departed immediately, declaring a desperate need for a shower, while Sheila remained to straighten up while Mandy stretched to cool down.

“Same time tomorrow?” Mandy asked.

“Of course not,” said Sheila, “you’ve got to go to school.”

“But what about the havoc-wreaking evil spirit?”

“The summoning won’t take place until after dark,” Sheila reminded her. “And you should never underestimate the value of a good education.”

Mandy let out a scornful laugh. “Good education, at my high school?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re learning something.”

“Yeah,” Mandy admitted, “how to avoid getting shanked in the hallway.”

“Which is definitely a valuable skill,” Sheila insisted. “And historically speaking, high schools have been hot beds for mystical activity, so keep your eye open.”

“Seriously? So being the Slayer won’t even get me out of classes,” Mandy summed up. “God, this is bullshit.”

Suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of profound unfairness, Mandy stormed up the basement steps in a huff. She continued walking right out of the house, slamming the door in dramatic fashion and not looking back once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [gallagerfamilyreunion.tumblr.com](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com) :)


	4. Chosen (Part Four)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Kesha voice* It's goin down, I'm yellin timberrrrr...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the usual supernatural violence and strong language.

Given a choice between going to school the next morning and fighting an army of the undead, Mandy thought she might pick the vampires.

But since that wasn’t actually an option, she dragged herself out of bed and finished getting ready at almost exactly the same time that a tall, redheaded boy came knocking at the front door.

“Hey,” she said, greeting Ian with a warm hug.

“Hey stranger,” he replied. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Mandy apologized as she shut the door behind her and set off on the trek to school.

“Mickey not coming?”

“Dunno,” she said with a shrug. “But I wanted to talk to you without my shithead brother around, anyway.”

“Everything okay?” asked Ian, frowning in concern as he eyed her for signs of distress and undoubtedly noticed the faint shiner she still sported on her cheekbone.

“Yeah,” Mandy told him. “Well, no. I mean… it’s fucked up. You’re probably not gonna believe me.”

Ian looked at her skeptically. “Try me.”

Which Mandy took as her cue to launch into a dramatic retelling of the whole unlikely series of events, minus a few select details (her troubling nightmares, Karen Jackson’s semi-vampiric state). By the time she finished, Ian—as predicted—was wearing an incredulous grin.

“Bullshit,” he declared.

“See? Knew you wouldn’t buy it.”

“Oh, come on, Mandy, vampires?”

When Ian dropped the v-word Mandy hushed him forcefully; they’d made their way onto school grounds, and as much as she felt mostly indifference, if not open contempt for her classmates, she didn’t exactly want them thinking she was batshit.

“Seriously?” Ian replied, but humored her by lowering his voice. “You’ve been playing too much Castlevania or something; there’s no way.”

Mandy scoffed. “Trust me, I wish that were the case. It’s a huge pain in the ass.”

“Show me, then.”

“What?”

“If they’re real, I want to see a fucking vampire.”

“No, you don’t,” Mandy assured him.

“Why not? Think I can’t handle it? I’m in ROTC you know, I can do 100—”

“Push-ups at a time, yeah, I do know,” Mandy interrupted wearily. “You don’t have supernatural strength and reflexes though, so…” she trailed off with a “that’s life” shrug.

“Are you saying you could take me?” Ian asked, a strong competitive undercurrent to his playful tone.

“Oh, I could definitely take you, army boy,” Mandy replied, drawing herself up to her full height and defiantly meeting his gaze head-on.

There was a moment’s tense pause, finally broken by Ian. “Arm wrestle?” he suggested lightly. “If I win, you have to show me one.”

“And if I win?” Mandy wondered.

“I’ll believe you,” Ian said, “no questions asked.”

They shook on the deal, then moved to commandeer one of the industrial metal picnic tables that dotted the school yard.

“Move it, nerds,” Mandy said to the small group of freshmen sitting at the table, who scattered instantly. She and Ian took their seats on either side, propped their elbows up on the honeycomb grate of the tabletop and clasped hands.

“Count of three,” said Ian. “One.”

Mandy brushed her bangs out of her eyes with her free hand.

“Two.”

She exhaled, preparing for the resistance to come.

“Three.”

She tensed and felt Ian do the same, but knew instantly that he was no match for her new super-strength. She could have taken him out in a heartbeat if she wanted, but why not fuck with him a little first?

“What’s wrong, Gallagher, I thought you said go on three?”

Ian made no reply, face turning red as he squirmed in a desperate attempt to gain leverage.

“Seriously, are you even trying? Guess it might be time to re-think that push-up routine, huh?” Mandy teased. She saw the veins of Ian’s neck begin to bulge, and decided to put him out of his misery before he hurt himself.

“Getting bored now,” she declared. Exerting a fraction of her full strength, Mandy pushed back and pinned Ian’s arm to the table with a smooth, quick motion.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” said Ian, still catching his breath.

Seeing his expression of wide-eyed disbelief, Mandy allowed herself a satisfied smirk. “Told you.”

* * *

Mandy had assumed that her decisive arm-wrestling victory would put an end to the subject entirely, but of course that wasn’t the case.

“Coming over tonight?” Ian asked when they met up again at the end of what had to be the longest school day ever.

“Can’t,” she told him. “Duty calls.”

Which wasn’t exactly the answer Ian had hoped for. “So this is how it’s gonna be now?” he wondered. “Should I just plan on never seeing you again, or…?”

“What? No,” she insisted. “There’s something I gotta take care of tonight, and then I’m totally free. We’ll hang out tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Ian said skeptically, and then they parted ways.

* * *

“No. Nope. Definitely not.”

“But you let me before!”

“That was different.”

“Yeah, because this time I might actually get to do something.”

“Or you might get your neck snapped.”

Mandy had assumed that the evening’s plan would be all set to go by the time she arrived at the Jacksons’, but apparently Karen and Sheila were still working out a few details.

“Um, hey,” she said as she entered the dining room, where the pair was arguing over a table scattered with drawings, diagrams and scanned pages of what seemed to be very old books. “What’s going on?”

“Mom doesn’t think you need any backup for the thing tonight, but I think you do,” Karen explained.

“Well, I guess that depends on what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing,” Mandy pointed out.

“Oh, right,” said Sheila. “It’s, um, pretty simple as far as counterspells go. All you have to do is wait until the summoning ceremony starts, and then read this—” She paused to show Mandy one of the printouts, an ornately handwritten series of verses that definitely weren’t in English “—within earshot of the vessel containing the spirit, before the disciples release it.”

“The disciples,” Mandy repeated. “Those guys in the black robes?”

“Those vampires, yes,” Sheila confirmed. “There shouldn’t be more than ten or twelve of them.”

“Oh, only ten or twelve,” she replied sarcastically. “And I’m supposed to, what, hope they don’t notice me?”

“That would be ideal.”

Sheila’s apparent lack of concern about the whole thing was both baffling and kind of terrifying for Mandy. “Don’t you think they might notice a teenage girl crashing their party and reading a spell in fucking Latin or whatever?”

“Oh no,” said Sheila. “Not Latin, just Old Spanish.”

“Well in that case, piece of cake.”

“Mandy, I don’t appreciate that tone,” Sheila replied, bristling at the sarcastic comment.

“Well I don’t appreciate being sent on a life-threatening mission with only a pointy stick and a fucking photocopy,” Mandy shot back.

“Okay,” Karen intervened. “Mom, she’s right. It’s a two-person job."

But Sheila refused to budge from her original position. “You’re not going.”

“Fine then, can’t you come along?” Mandy suggested.

The atmosphere in the room tensed, and Sheila shook her head forcefully. “I don’t do… that.”

Which was a less than helpful explanation, obviously. “Meaning…?” prompted Mandy.

“She stays here,” Karen jumped in. “Just drop it, okay?” she added in a scolding, protective tone that surprised Mandy. “Mom, I have to go,” she continued, much gentler now. “But we’ll be okay, I promise. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Mandy and I are like, total badasses.”

Sheila let out a long, sad sigh that made Mandy feel a little sorry for her. “Okay,” she finally conceded, “you can help save the world. But be careful.”

* * *

Karen and Mandy set out after dark, and immediately suffered an unforeseen and disastrous setback in the form of their extremely uncomfortable disguises.

“Fuck,” said Mandy, itching her bare arms under the sandpaper-y burlap robe, dyed black to match the ones worn by the creepy vampire disciples or whatever they were. “Couldn’t you guys have made these out of a slightly less scratchy fabric?”

“Sorry,” Karen said with a shrug, pulling up the hood of her own robe as they navigated the now-familiar cemetery grounds and neared the crypt. “Slaying on a budget, you know how it is. Do you hear anything?”

“Yeah,” Mandy agreed, catching strains of a chant similar to the one they’d heard before coming up from the mausoleum. “It sounds like they’re starting. Got your script?”

“All set,” confirmed Karen, holding up the folded sheet of paper printed with the crucial spell.

“Okay, let’s—”

Mandy and Karen both froze at the sound of a twig snapping behind them, and then Mandy’s whole body deflated in disappointment. “Seriously, again?” she said just before drawing her stake and spinning quickly, ready to impale whatever the fuck was sneaking up on them.

But when she saw their assumed attacker, she managed to stop herself just short.

“Jesus,” said a wide-eyed Ian, staring down at the sharp spike poised inches from his chest.

“Holy shit, Ian,” Mandy replied, lowering her stake and exhaling to calm herself down. “What the fuck, did you follow us here?”

“Maybe,” he admitted, resulting in exasperated sighs from both girls. “Sorry! I know I said I’d drop it, but I had to make sure you weren’t full of shit.”

“Wait, you know this guy?” asked Karen. “And you told him?”

“Yeah, I did,” Mandy confessed. “I see now that that was a huge mistake,” she added, looking directly at Ian as she spoke. “Karen, this is my friend Ian. Ian, this is my… Karen,” she finished awkwardly, unable to think of a simple label for their relationship.

“Hi,” Ian said, shifting uncomfortably under the full force of Karen’s glare.

“Yeah, great,” Karen said. “Not to ruin the fun or anything, but we need to get a move on. And you need to go away,” she added, shooing Ian off with a wave of her hand.

“What? No, I want to help,” Ian insisted.

Mandy threw her head back and sighed in frustration. “Fuck, we don’t have time for this,” she declared. “Alright, you’re the backup.” She reached down and picked up a sturdy branch, snapped it in two and handed the shorter, pointier end to Ian. “Stay here. If you see anything coming, run away. As a last resort, stab it in the heart with this. Got it?”

“Um, yeah, but what if—”

“No time,” Mandy interrupted. “Don’t fuck up the plan. And try not to die.”

“But I don’t even know the plan,” Ian protested, but the two girls had already taken off into the night.

* * *

Silently surveying the scene with Karen from a crouched position at the entrance to the mausoleum, Mandy had to admit that it looked pretty bleak. An actual horde of vampires encircled an elevated tomb at the center of the crypt, on which sat the large, weathered metal urn that presumably contained the evil spirit in question.

“Whoa,” said a voice from behind, startling both of them.

It was Ian of course, unable to resist checking out the action.

“Are you serious?” Karen said in a harsh whisper. “He’s like a stray puppy.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Mandy replied wearily. “Goddammit Ian, just… stay here. Okay?”

“But—”

“No,” she cut him off. “Stay.”

“Fine,” he agreed, face dropping in disappointment.

“Oh, and on the off-chance that i do die in there, tell Mickey I’m gonna haunt the shit out of him for all those titty twisters.”

“Okay…?” said Ian in confusion as Karen and Mandy made their move, creeping slowly and silently into the crypt.

They tried to stay hidden as much as possible, slipping between the shadows cast by the torches that lined the walls. The summoning event appeared to be reaching its peak, an eerie blue glow pulsing from the vessel. Karen sensed that time was running out and began to read the spell in a calm, steady tone.

It didn’t take long for her recitation to draw the attention of the two vampires standing closest to them in the circle, who turned and moved slowly toward them.

Which was Mandy’s cue for action: she tossed off the cumbersome, movement-restricting robe and brandished her stake, hoping she appeared much more intimidating than she felt. Karen paused momentarily and looked up in alarm but then resumed reading, having been instructed by Sheila not to stop under any circumstances until the spell was complete.

The first vampire attacked, and Mandy immediately realized that this was going to be much trickier than the average fight: the point wasn't staying out of harm’s way, but staying between harm and Karen. So she suppressed her initial instinct to simply dodge the lumbering figure and instead shoved him away, giving her time to deal with the second vampire while the first regained its balance. She reached up for the bracket holding the nearest torch and grabbed on, lifting herself up as the vampire charged her and then dropping down as it ran head-on into the wall, staking it neatly from behind.

But there was no time to congratulate herself on a well-executed kill; its death cry had definitely drawn the attention of the rest of the circle, and the first vampire was already approaching again with bloodlust in its yellow eyes.

Mandy stared it down, maintaining her defensive position in front of Karen and waiting for it to make the first move. It seemed like the showdown could carry on indefinitely, until suddenly a look of pain, then confusion crossed the vampire’s face even as it disintegrated before her eyes, revealing a familiar figure standing just beyond.  

“Cool,” said Ian with a grin, standing with his makeshift stake still poised where the dusted vamp had been.

“Ian, what the fuck?” Mandy said, anger overwhelming her appreciation for the help.

“Oh, come on,” he pleaded. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”

“No, you definitely could,” she corrected him, sparing a glance back at Karen, who was frowning but continued to read. “It’s sort of my job.”

The debate was cut short by the situation at hand: the rest of the vampire horde was now advancing toward the three of them. Only one remained behind, continuing the ominous chant as it stood at the head of the tomb next to the urn, which was glowing brighter with every passing second.

Mandy steeled herself and pushed down the feeling of terror rising from the pit of her stomach at the sight of seven huge demons bearing down on her and her friends as she reached back and grabbed the flaming torch from its bracket. She waved it in the direction of the vampires, who uttered annoyed growls at the heat and light but continued to advance anyway.

“Alright,” she taunted them, “come on, you fuckers.”

Which was a huge mistake, she realized immediately: the horde was more than happy to oblige. Mandy did her best to work in tandem with Ian to keep Karen safe, but he had even less training than she did and neither of them was used to working as part of a team.

“Hey, why’s this guy still here?” Ian asked after staking one of the vampires in the dead center of the chest.  He still held it pinned against the wall for the moment, although it wouldn’t be long before it overpowered his grip.

“You missed the heart, dumbass,” Mandy called, still holding the majority of them at bay with her torch.

“Oh,” said Ian. He pulled out the stake, adjusted slightly to the left and plunged it in again, which produced the desired effect instantaneously. One down, way too many to go.

Luck appeared to be on Mandy’s side for the moment, though. Another vampire stepped a little too close to the end of the torch, and its robe went up in flame immediately. (She’d have thought that a creature with a mortal weakness for fire would make its garments from a more flame-retardant fabric, but wasn’t about to question the stroke of good fortune.) The fire-engulfed figure ran from the crypt out into the night, making it no more than ten yards before bursting apart in a glowing orange explosion.  But the moment of glory was sadly short-lived.

“Mandy!” Karen called from across the room. She whipped her head around in alarm, and felt sick to her stomach when she saw that one of the vampires had managed to sneak up and entrap Karen from behind, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other across her chest, hand closed on her neck. Glowering at Mandy, It bared its fangs and prepared to sink them into Karen’s jugular.

A surge of supernatural strength and adrenaline coursed through Mandy as she made her way through the crowd, feeling her torch get knocked free from her grip but only focused on getting to Karen before that fucking thing bit her. She finally broke through the chaos and, operating on instinct alone, made a desperate, flying leap.

The force of the jump knocked all three of them to the ground. Mandy was back on her feet quickly while Karen rolled away, leaving the vampire exposed on its back. Mandy didn’t hesitate in coming down forcefully with her stake directly in that asshole’s heart, feeling a particular satisfaction in watching it turn to dust.

“I dropped the paper,” Karen told her, still on her hands and knees searching the stone-paved floor frantically. “Do you see it?”

Mandy scanned for the crumpled sheet containing the crucial spell and spotted it almost immediately, just a couple of feet away.

“There,” she said, pointing.

Karen began to crawl toward it, but a sudden scuffle between Ian and the remaining vampires set the fallen torch rolling in precisely that direction. Both girls watched in horror as the paper went up in flames.

“Fuck!” Mandy exclaimed, panic rising as she found that she had no idea how to proceed now that the plan had gone so completely wrong.

“Hey,” said Karen, pulling her attention back into the moment. “We can still end this. Stop him,” she added, nodding toward the lone vampire still reciting the chant on the dais.

“Um, a little help?” said Ian, who was dangerously close to being overwhelmed by the four other vampires still standing.

“I got it,” said Karen as she shed her own robe and pulled from her waistband a stake Mandy didn’t know she’d been carrying. “You go.”

Mandy approached the tomb, gripping her own weapon tightly in her sweaty palm. The vampire gave no sign that it was aware of her, its eyes turned skyward as it recited a repetitive series of phrases in a low monotone, the glow of the urn almost blindingly white now.

“Hey!” she called, desperate to distract it and stop the ceremony.

The vampire stopped chanting abruptly, its eyes snapping down and locking in on her. She met its expectant gaze, searching for a snappy comeback, but in the face of such clear and overwhelming evil nothing came to mind.

“Go fuck yourself,” she settled on at last, plunging the stake into its chest before it could even blink.

And then, quite unexpectedly, the motherfucker grinned, and spoke a sentence that made her blood run cold.

“You’re too late.”

Even as it spoke it began to dissolve into a pile of dust, lingering just long enough for its elated expression to permanently burn itself into Mandy’s memory.

Before she had time to move or speak the ground began to rumble steadily, the only warning sign before a powerful burst of energy exploded from the urn and knocked Mandy to the ground. She covered her head with her arms and squeezed her eyes tightly against the blinding blue-white glow, and just when she thought she couldn’t handle anymore, everything was dark and quiet again.

Sitting upright she saw that whatever it was had also knocked Ian and Karen off their feet. The rest of the vampires were nowhere to be found, either because of their handiwork or as the result of the impossibly bright flash that had engulfed the crypt.

Mandy was almost afraid to ask the question, but she had to know for sure. “Please tell me that wasn’t what I think it was.”

* * *

“No, that was definitely it,” Sheila confirmed once Mandy and Karen made it back for their debriefing. The whole thing seemed so surreal now, sitting in the warm light of the living room and sipping the herbal tea that Sheila insisted would calm their nerves. They’d successfully ditched Ian, but only with the promise of keeping him up to date on any future vampire-hunting opportunities—that was definitely an argument for another day. 

“Shit,” said Mandy. “So where is it now?”

“Well, It could be anywhere,” Sheila explained. “There’s really no way of knowing until it starts acting on its instincts.”

“A.k.a. fucking shit up,” Karen paraphrased.

“So, what?” said Mandy. “We just have to wait?”

“Yes,” Sheila confirmed. “We wait.”

_End credits_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for "episode" one! [gallagherfamilyreunion](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com) on tumblr, you know the drill. :)


	5. Creatures of Random Destruction (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [have y'all heard diplo's tennis court remix??????](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU54WvoF_ew)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for language including an ableist slur, mentions of guns/drugs/alcohol

The thing was big and fast and it was gaining on her, and Mandy was getting real sick of this shit.

She had stumbled across it on the way home from her regular patrol, beating up on someone—a drunk homeless guy, from the looks of it—in a back alley behind a local bar.

“Hey!” She called, seeing that the assailant was too large to be human and assuming she just had an oversized vamp on her hands.

The creature looked up at the sound of her voice and Mandy instantly regretted saying anything, homeless guy be damned. Drawing itself up to its full height, the thing was easily over 8 feet tall, with scaly moss-green skin, curving horns on top of its head and large, boulder-like appendages in place of hands. Like if The Thing and The Hulk had some kind of hell baby.

So Mandy took off running and the demon (what else could it be?) followed, shaking the ground with every deliberate step it took. She thought she’d be able to outrun it without much trouble, but as she sprinted down the mostly deserted street she could hear it catching up to her, aimlessly smashing car windows, mailboxes, light poles and whatever else was in its path, setting off a trail of alarms as it progressed.

Mandy was gasping for air now, even her enhanced slayer stamina starting to give way after a full-out sprint that had taken her at least a mile across the city. She spied a narrow side alley and seized her opportunity for evasion, ducking down it before the creature came into view and crouching next to a dumpster so she was hidden from the street.

Luckily stealth was not this particular demon’s strong suit; she heard it moving toward her wreaking havoc while it was still a long way off, and prepared to make a break for it if necessary. She realized with a sinking feeling that she had basically cornered herself: there was no exit from the other end of the alley, just a brick wall that was as solid as they came. Rookie mistake. A fire escape across the alley might do in desperate times, but with the ladder raised it was at least a 12-foot jump, and Mandy wasn’t all that confident in her vertical leap.

So she waited, hoping for the best. The sound of breaking glass and crunching metal drew very close and suddenly stopped; although she didn’t dare look, Mandy knew the creature was at the end of her alley, probably perking up its ears for any noise that might give away her position. She did her best to keep perfectly still, not even daring to breathe. (The rank smell coming from the dumpster added extra incentive on that front, but still.)

After a second the demon seemed to lose interest, but Mandy waited a very, very long time before venturing out of her hiding spot.

* * *

“Right, so two questions,” said Karen.

The next afternoon Mandy was back at the Jacksons—HQ, as she’d come to think of it—seated at the kitchen table for what was shaping up to be a long and boring debriefing.

“One,” Karen continued, “why didn’t you just take this thing out again? And two, what’s he doing here?”

The second question referred to Ian, who had been sitting quietly and soaking everything in like a perfectly behaved schoolboy, but now rewarded Karen’s inquisitiveness with a tight-lipped smirk and a flip of his middle finger. “Hey, if I hadn’t showed up the other night you’d be dead,” he pointed out.

“That,” Karen replied, “is debatable.” She turned to Sheila for backup. “He’s dead weight, Mom,” she insisted. “And a liability, with what he knows.”

“Fuck you, I can keep a secret,” Ian fired back.

“Yeah, come on,” Mandy chimed in. “I had to tell someone.”

“I suppose he could be… useful,” Sheila conceded after a moment’s consideration.

“So I’m not voted out of the tribe?”

“Not yet,” Karen corrected him. “But that still leaves my first question about why the slayer didn’t, you know, slay.”

“Oh, like you could have done better?” Mandy asked, bristling at the accusation.

Karen gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Okay well, first of all, fuck you,” said Mandy. “And second, what exactly was I supposed to fight it with? I really don’t think a pointy stick would have made much of an impact.”

Sheila nodded. “You need some better weapons.”

“Thank you, that’s what I’m saying,” Mandy said, relieved that she’d gotten through to someone. “Time to break out the swords and shit.”

“Oh boy,” said Sheila, mainly to herself.  “Don’t get too excited; it’s important to remember that these are ancient and sacred weapons, only to be used with—”

“Yeah, got it,” Mandy interrupted, standing and stretching in anticipation of finally getting some action. “You ready to go train or what?”

“Um, yes,” Sheila agreed, slightly flustered by Mandy’s eagerness. “No time like the present. Karen, can you keep looking for information on the demon Mandy saw?”

“Check,” Karen replied with a nod.

“What about me?” asked Ian.

Karen came down with a sudden coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like “go home,” which was ignored by the others.

“You can help Karen,” Sheila suggested instead, which seemed to please exactly no one.

Karen opened her mouth to protest but her mother was already gone, following Mandy into the basement to prepare for the challenge ahead.

* * *

With so little information to go on and a large pool of possible contenders to eliminate, it was several hours before Ian and Karen ventured downstairs to share their findings.

“Whoa,” said Ian in reaction to the vast array of weapons on display, particularly the large, deadly-looking battle axe Mandy was currently wielding.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Karen warned, seeing the wheels turning in his head.

“What?” he asked innocently. “I was just looking.”

“Find something?” Mandy wondered, setting her weapon aside and wiping the sweat from her brow.

“Yeah, I think so,” Karen confirmed. She pulled up a full-screen image, flipping the laptop around to show her. “Is this the guy?”

Mandy leaned down and squinted at the picture. “Yeah, I think so. What is it?”

“Grollian demon,” Karen said. “Pretty much bent on random destruction, like you said.”

“So it’s not connected to the thing from the other night? The summoning?”

“Nope.”

“Well, not directly,” Sheila added. “But it’s likely that the ceremony caused a sort of mystical earthquake, which would result in a larger than usual number of supernatural occurrences.”

“Meaning there are gonna be a lot more of these fuckers popping up,” Mandy paraphrased—she was getting much better at translating this shit.

“Not necessarily these specific demons,” said Sheila, “but yes, there is the possibility.”

Mandy accepted her fate with a heavy sigh. “Alright, how do I kill this asshole? Cuz these swords are like, super badass and all but I was actually thinking it might be easier to just shoot the fucker. I could borrow one of my brothers’ guns and—”

“That won’t work,” Karen interrupted. “The Grollian demon can only be killed by a blade forged of solid iron plated with silver. Like that one, for instance,” she added, nodding toward the axe Mandy had just laid aside.

“Well that’s convenient, then,” Mandy replied, letting out a long sigh as her exertions seemed to all catch up with her at once. “Shit, I’m beat. Can we pick this up tomorrow?”

“I don’t know if that’s wise,” said Sheila. “That demon is still out on the loose, wreaking havoc at every turn…”

“Yeah, but who’s gonna notice a couple of extra busted up cars in this part of town?” Mandy pointed out.

“Maybe we could all use a break,” Sheila conceded, catching onto the testiness and exhaustion in Mandy’s tone. “We’ll work out the details of the plan tomorrow.”

“Let me walk you home?” Ian asked Mandy. She readily agreed, grateful for the comfortable familiarity of his presence in the midst of the chaotic mess her life was becoming.

* * *

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Mickey said when Mandy and Ian entered the house. He was camped out on the couch, predictably, chowing down on pizza rolls and playing a round of Call of Duty. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Since when do you care?” Mandy asked, dropping her jacket and bag in a heap by the door.

“Since rent’s due by the end of the week and we’re $300 bucks short,” he replied. “Weren’t you gonna get a part-time job or some shit?”

“Yeah, as soon as you get your ass off the couch and do something besides play fucking video games all day,” she shot back. Ian shifted uncomfortably but made no move to leave, which seemed weird but only for a moment.

“Hey Gallagher, I got your shit,” Mickey said, dropping the subject of the rent for the time being.

“Ok,” said Ian, and followed Mickey back to his room.

Great, so now Mandy could add Ian buying drugs from her fucking brother to her list of things to worry about. Hopefully it was only pot; she made a note to grill both of them about it later as she headed for the refuge of her bedroom and the promise of a full night’s sleep.

* * *

The glowing red display of her alarm clock read 4:00 a.m. when Mandy’s eyes suddenly popped open, the seeds of a terrible, desperate and almost certainly self-sabotaging plan pushing up through her subconscious. She tried to shove it back down but knew from past experience that the effort was pointless. Now that the idea was in her mind, carrying it out was almost as inevitable as death.

* * *

It seemed like Mandy had only just drifted back to sleep when she was awoken again by a loud pounding on her bedroom door, but the orange light spilling through the curtains and a glance at her clock confirmed that it was, in fact, morning.

“Yo, Mandy,” Mickey called when it became apparent that his violent knocking wouldn’t be enough. “Come on, open up.”

Mandy exhaled heavily, her entire mind and body screaming for more sleep. But she knew her brother wouldn’t relent, so she reluctantly got up and opened the door.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked, holding up the black duffel bag she’d dropped the night before.

“None of your fucking business,” she told him as she snatched the bag from his hands and tried to force the door shut, only to be foiled by Mickey’s foot blocking the door frame.

“Hey, wait,” he said. “What is that shit? Did you join some weird-ass cult or something; do I need to hide the Kool-Aid?”

Strange as the question seemed, it was actually pretty easy to see how he’d come to that conclusion: the bag mainly contained assorted crosses and crucifixes, glass vials of holy water, and a collection of pointy wooden sticks.

How he knew what was in the bag was another fucking story. “Why were you going through my shit?” she demanded.

“I wasn’t,” Mickey replied, raising his hands innocently. “I was just looking for the smokes you stole last week, and instead I found all this weird crap, I mean what the fuck? It looks you robbed the Vatican and a fucking Lincoln Log factory.”

“Okay, well, I didn’t steal your cigarettes,” Mandy said to set the record straight, but Mickey continued to look at her expectantly. He obviously wasn’t going to let it slide without at least a semi-logical answer.

She considered a.) bullshitting him, or, b.) bribing him, but ruled both options out immediately. Anything she tried would only be a temporary solution, and if this was actually going to be a thing (she still hadn’t entirely given up hope that it was all an elaborate nightmare), it would probably be a lot easier to just come clean.

“Vampires,” Mickey repeated once she’d finished explaining, “is this like some Twilight shit?” He suddenly frowned, struck by a horrifying thought. “Wait, you’re not in love with one, are you?”

“What? No,” Mandy replied with an appalled expression of her own. “It’s not like that. They’re a lot… wrinklier in real life.”

“Okay,” said Mickey, still eying her skeptically. “If any of those fuckers try to get in your pants, you come to me.”

“So you believe me?”

He shrugged. “Why not? Weirder shit’s happened, right?”

Mandy raised her eyebrows, surprised at how easily he swallowed the facts. “I guess,” she said. “Ian made me arm wrestle him to prove it, you know.”

“Gallagher knows?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone else,” she insisted.

Mickey laughed. “Why would I tell; do I want people to think I’m fucking psychotic?”

Which was a fair point; Mandy changed the subject. “Speaking of Ian, I know you sold to him.”

But Mickey waved off her concern. “Hey, would you rather he get it from me or someone else?”

Which was also a very valid point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I guess I'm pretty much writing this for myself at this point, but thanks for your support if you're reading this :)


	6. Creatures of Random Destruction (Part Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> did you know that polar bears can swim for up to a week without stopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gendered slurs, language + supernatural violence

“And block. Now parry. Good. Again.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got the hang of it,” Mandy protested, dropping the heavy axe after what felt like the millionth repetition of the same fucking exercise. “It’s not like it’s that hard,” she added, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

“That’s what she said,” Karen chimed in from the steps, where she and Ian sat observing her training session.

“It doesn’t seem hard now,” Sheila pointed out, ignoring her daughter’s comment, “but in the heat of the battle, muscle memory is extremely important. You have to be able to act without thinking.”

Mandy wanted to ask what the fuck Sheila knew about the heat of the battle, but thought better of it. “Yeah, well I don’t think my muscles can remember any more right now,” she confessed instead. “Maybe we could take a break for some, like, strategizing?”

“Please,” added Karen. “I’m bored as hell. So’s Ian.”

“Well, actually—” Ian began, but was cut off by a sharp elbow to the chest from Karen.

“Shut the fuck up,” she instructed, with a “what the fuck is wrong with you?” look she seemed to reserve especially for him.

“Alright,” Sheila conceded, looking down to check her watch. “Oh, I think my casserole’s done, too.”

She followed Karen and Ian up the wooden steps and paused at the top to wait for Mandy, who lingered in the basement.

“Coming?” she asked.

“Go ahead, I’m just gonna stretch and stuff,” Mandy told her. “Be up in a sec.”

She waited anxiously for the telltale thud of the cellar door shutting, and another moment after that to make sure the coast was really clear. Once she was confident of not being interrupted she moved quickly and quietly, having already cased the room while she trained.

Mandy made a beeline for the cupboard on the far wall, which seemed like the most promising option: she was looking for something small but valuable, something that could easily go missing without either of the Jacksons noticing.

Something like the softball-sized orb on the bottom shelf of the cabinet, for example, nestled off to the side amid an assortment of short knives, sai, and miscellaneous lethal instruments. The surface of the orb was engraved with ancient-looking symbols and had a silvery sheen to it, which probably mean that it was made of some extremely rare, valuable metal.

Or at least that was what Mandy hoped as she picked it up and slipped it into her duffel bag, carefully shut the cabinet doors and ascended the stairs to rejoin the others like nothing had ever happened.

* * *

“This isn’t gonna work,” Karen said firmly, looking Ian dead in the eye.

“Yes it is,” he insisted, unblinking and apparently unintimidated.

Mandy sighed in frustration, shoving her half-eaten eggplant casserole off to the side. Sheila’s cooking was delicious as always, but the seemingly endless argument put a damper on her appetite. Sheila herself remained above the fray, humming in contentment as she cleaned up the kitchen.

“Guys,” Mandy interrupted. She wasn’t sure if she sounded authoritative or just pissed off, but for whatever reason Karen and Ian both stopped short and looked at her.

“It’ll work,” she said confidently, producing a smug smirk from Ian, “but we need another person.”

Karen was immediately ready with an objection, naturally. “But there’s no one—”

“Yes, there is,” Mandy cut her off. She let out a long sigh before sharing her confession. “ Mickey knows.”

“What?” said Ian, at precisely the same moment that Karen asked, “Who’s Mickey?”

“My brother,” Mandy explained. “He found my slayer shit. And he would have figured it out eventually anyway,” she defended herself, noticing Karen and Sheila’s looks of disapproval. “He’s not quite as moronic as the rest of my brothers.”

“That is true,” Ian confirmed.  

But Sheila definitely was not appeased. “Does the phrase, ‘sacred and ancient secret’ mean nothing these days?” she wailed, throwing up her rubber-gloved hands in despair and leaving a trail of foamy soap bubbles in the air.

“Sorry,” Mandy apologized sincerely; she hadn’t realized it was such a big deal.

“Well, it’s done now,” added Karen, doing her best to move everyone past it.

“Not if I whip up a quick memory spell,” said Sheila, brightening up at the idea. “Karen, is there anymore dried lethe in the pantry?”

“Nope, it’s all gone,” Karen informed her. “And you promised not to do those anymore unless absolutely necessary.”

“Well, this seems pretty goddamn necessary,” Sheila insisted.

“Oh come on, it’s fine,” said Mandy. “We could use the help, you know.”

“Yeah, I could really use a neighborhood thug breaking into my house and robbing me blind.” The words were out of Sheila’s mouth before she could stop them, and suddenly it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room at once.

Mandy was on her feet in an instant. “Let’s get this straight,” she said, not hesitating to get in Sheila’s face. “You don’t know anything about me, or my life, or my family. So if you ever start talking shit about my brother again, I’ll punch your fucking lights out, I don’t care if you’re my watcher or the fucking queen of France. Got it?”

Sheila nodded and backed away, still eyeing her warily along with Ian and Karen, who were both understandably reluctant to speak up.

“Okay,” said Mandy. “Let’s go get Mickey and fucking finish this thing.”

* * *

“I knew this would happen,” Mickey said smugly, the small group (minus Sheila) now gathered on the Milkovich porch. “First sign of trouble, come running to big brother.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re only older than me by like, two minutes,” Mandy pointed out. “And second of all, we don’t need your help with the actual fighting part.”

“We?” Mickey repeated with an amused smirk. “So what are you now, like the three musketeers? Or probably more like the three stooges, huh?”

“Jesus,” muttered Karen, “we don’t have time for this.”

“Do you want to help or not?” Ian asked bluntly, to Mandy’s mild surprise.

“Well, according to Van Helsing over here, you don’t need my help,” Mickey replied.

“Not to fight it, dipshit,” Mandy reiterated. “We just need someone to distract it.”

Mickey put two and two together immediately and wasn’t happy with what he got. “Oh, so I’m the fucking bait?”

Mandy was about to reply with another smartass comeback, but Ian beat her to it. “Look, you can go back in there and stare at the wall with Iggy and Colin,” he said, “or you can come help kill a fucking monster.”

At which point Mickey started grinning like a kid on Christmas morning; it was obvious what his choice would be.

“Wow,” said Karen, ruining the moment. “Great speech, Red. Really fucking inspirational. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Ian responded by flipping her the bird, and the four of them set off into the night.

* * *

As Mandy waited in the dark, dank alley, she felt much less confident of her plan than she had in the clean, well-lit Jackson dining room. Karen was crouched next to her and must have sensed her nerves, giving her knee a reassuring squeeze. Ordinarily Mandy would have found the gesture annoying at best, but from her it was oddly comforting.

They’d committed to total silence, simply watching, waiting, and listening for the demon’s approach. Mandy couldn’t see Ian, but knew he was doing the same thing in the shadows of the alley directly across the street. Hours seemed to pass and doubts continued creeping into Mandy’s mind: what if the demon hadn’t shown up at the bar again after all? Or worse, what if it had and Mickey couldn’t lure it toward them? What if he was on the run for his life at that very moment, or already dead? And most importantly, why had they come up with a plan that relied so heavily on her stupid fucking brother?

Just as Mandy was ready to abandon the plan and embark on a spontaneous rescue mission, she heard a familiar voice shouting insults and sighed in relief, both because it meant that Mickey was still alive and because it was nice to not be on the receiving end of those insults for once. She peered around the corner and confirmed that he was doing a pretty decent job luring the demon toward their trap, exactly as planned.

“Hey! Shithead!” he called over his shoulder, running just fast enough to stay out of the hulking creature’s grasp. “Yeah, this way, you dumb bitch!” he added, hurling an empty beer can at its head and hitting it directly between the eyes.

The can bounced away harmlessly, but the creature apparently did not like being taunted like that. It let out a terrifying roar and pursued Mickey with renewed intensity, drawing closer and closer to the alley.

Mandy picked up her flashlight and shined it across at Ian, who flashed back to signal that he was ready.

“Hang on,” she told Karen, who clutched one end of the long rope tightly and was ready to spring into action. “Three,” Mandy counted down, “two, one.”

Mickey ran past in a blur, and Mandy signaled to Ian to pull on his end of the rope as Karen did the same, and between them the sturdy cord went taut about two feet above the ground. The demon never saw it coming, tangling its tree trunk-like limbs in the rope and instantly losing its balance. Mandy sprang out of hiding with her axe, ready to attack while it struggled to regain its footing. But something made her hold back for a moment, and she watched with amazement and relief as it failed to right itself and instead toppled to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

Of course, she still had to kill the thing, but at this point the actual slaying was pretty much a gimme. Without any fingers—let alone opposable thumbs—with which to disentangle itself, the demon flailed helplessly as Mandy brandished her axe. She brought the blade down swiftly and confidently on its neck, severing its head in one fell swoop as the others looked on in various states of awe.

“That was fucking awesome,” Ian assessed once the moment of shock had passed.

Mickey, on the other hand, was much less impressed. “Whatever, I could have done that.”

“In your dreams, hobbit,” said Karen.

Mickey flipped her off with a scowl, “And I’m not gonna be the bait next time, okay?” he added. “Too much fucking running. Make Gallagher do it.”

“Hey,” Ian protested, not actually seeming that offended.

Meanwhile, Mickey’s choice of words had not been lost on Mandy. “‘Next time,’ huh? That mean you want in on this?”

He shrugged, which Mandy instantly recognized as the gesture he made when he wanted it to seem like he cared a lot less than he actually did. “Yeah, I guess,” he finally admitted.

“Good,” replied Mandy with a smirk. “You can help us with the body too, then. We gotta dump it in the river.”

Mickey stared at the headless corpse, which still easily topped out at 600 pounds or more, and grimaced as the magnitude of the task sank in. “Oh, fuck.”

* * *

“Two hundred dollars, bottom line,” said the old, bald man behind the counter, wiping off the lenses of his coke-bottle glasses with a tattered rag that didn’t seem capable of effectively cleaning anything. “You take this piece of shit to any other pawn shop in town, that’s more than what they’ll give you.”

“But these markings have to make it worth more, right?” Mandy pointed out, refusing to accept the offer without at least attempting to haggle. “And the finish, too, see?”

The shopkeeper shook his head firmly. “All scratched up,” he insisted, “probably impure. I’ll be lucky to break even.”

Mandy sighed in frustration. She knew he was probably bluffing, but she was running short on time and patience. “Fine,” she agreed, leaving the silvery orb on the glass countertop and holding out her hand to accept a small stack of bills in exchange. She double-counted them and left quickly, eager to escape the cramped, musty shop. As she walked home she tried not to think about how much of its merchandise had been sold out of desperation, how many prized possessions and family heirlooms sat gathering dust now, and whether the price they’d been sold for was worth it.

* * *

Mickey sat at the kitchen table smoking as he cleaned his gun; Mandy dropped the cash in front of him without a word.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking up the slim wad of bills.

“The rest of the rent.”

“Where’d you get it?” he pressed, counting it with a frown.

“Doesn’t matter,” she told him with a shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”

Knowing better than to expect a thank you, or anything other than more annoying follow-up questions, Mandy turned and walked away to her room, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

_End credits_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blah blah [tumblr](gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com) blah blah blah 
> 
> OH and thank you guys so much for your comments and stuff, you're all so nice and lovely OMG :)


	7. South Side Special (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN WATCHING PENNY DREADFUL????*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note this chapter includes bodies/corpses and has fairly heavy drug-related content (no actual drug use), along with gendered and ableist slurs

Mandy was very familiar, even comfortable with the concept of “necessary evil.” In this neighborhood, you did what you had to do in order to get by, and tried to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Running a scam, lying about your whereabouts on a certain date and time, stealing and then fencing the occasional ancient artifact: these were all part of the harsh reality of life on the South Side. (Although maybe the last one was a bit more slayer-specific.)

School, on the other hand, struck Mandy as a decidedly _un_ necessary evil. No one was expecting or planning for her to graduate, least of all Mandy herself. It felt like an inconvenient waste of time at best, a soul-sucking hell dimension at worst. In fact, she made a mental note to ask Sheila for help in confirming that it wasn’t exactly that.

But it was the one thing that Sheila absolutely insisted on and, probably anticipating some attempt at deception on Mandy’s part, rather ominously implied that she had her ways of finding out whether she actually attended class or not.

Well, fine. But she didn’t have to like it.

“Fuck this,” she moaned to Ian as they trudged into the building Monday morning.

“Hey, try to look on the bright side,” encouraged Ian, “maybe you’ll actually learn something today.”

Mandy snorted skeptically. “Your optimism is truly inspirational.”

“Whatever,” Ian said with an indifferent shrug; at this point he was pretty much impervious to her sarcasm. “Hang on, I gotta take a piss.”

“So you want me to wait for you? What am I, your girlfriend?”

Ian grinned. “You know it,” he said, pulling open the bathroom door. “BRB.”

Mandy leaned against the lockers next to the bathroom, definitely not in any rush to get to class. Most of the herd of students walking past managed to avoid her while appearing to ignore her, staring vaguely ahead in a way calculated not to draw any unwanted attention.

A tall, acne-faced kid in a red polo was the exception, greeting her with a sneering, “Sup, Milko- _bitch,_ ” as he breezed past her. The asshole in question was Kyle Grady, a fellow junior who had never passed up the opportunity to harass her since she’d rejected his repeated, forceful come-ons throughout freshman year.

“Your whitehead count, fuckhead,” she shot back instantly. Kyle turned around and flipped her off with both hands; Mandy happily returned the favor.

“Were you just flirting with that guy?” asked Ian, who had stepped out of the bathroom just in time to see the tail end of the exchange.

Mandy’s lip curled in disgust. “God, no,” she assured him.

“Good, I think you need to see something,” said Ian, his tone suddenly serious.

“In the boys’ room?”

“Yeah,” he said, holding the door open for her. Confused but curious, Mandy stepped inside.

“Hey!” squealed a short, curly-haired kid who stood at one of the three urinals, quickly zipping up his fly when he noticed Mandy’s presence.

“Fuck off,” she said, unfazed as the kid ran out the door. The bathroom appeared to be otherwise unoccupied and was actually pretty peaceful, with golden rays of morning light streaming in from high, narrow windows on the east-facing wall. A scattering of Sharpie graffiti spoiled the whitewashed bricks, which were regularly painted over to prevent too much build-up and (theoretically) discourage vandals.

The metal stalls were much more permanently marked, pen and pocket-knife carvings standing out in stark relief against the blood-red finish; where repainting had been attempted they still showed through like badly-healed scars. The fleeting impulses of bored and delinquent teenage boys (including such gems as “fuck u,” “ur mom sucks dick,” and the vague but unexpectedly sentimental “ig + mm 4 ever”) would be preserved for all future restroom visitors to behold.

But as it turned out, the most interesting feature of this particular bathroom was to be found on the floor of the second stall, the one abutting the far wall. Mandy felt something like an electric shock, and then her stomach dropped to the pit of her stomach as she realized that her initial assessment was wrong: the bathroom wasn’t totally vacant after all.

On the floor was a ghostly pale boy, slumped against the toilet with one stiff arm draped across the bowl and his head resting in the crook of his arm at an unnatural angle. His mouth was closed, with a faint green tinge at the corners of his lips, but his eyes were wide open, glassy and unseeing.

There was no need for Mandy to ask but she did anyway, mainly because she had no idea what else to say.

“Is he dead?”

“Looks like it,” Ian confirmed grimly.

“Well, shit,” said Mandy. “Looks like I won’t be going to class today.”

* * *

“But how do you know this has anything to do with you?” asked Ian. “It could just be an overdose or something .”

The pair sat in the hallway and watched the paramedics wheel away a shiny chrome stretcher, the shape of a body clearly visible under the crisp white sheet. It was an image Mandy had seen on TV a thousand times, but in person it was definitely much creepier.

The novelty of the ambulance’s arrival had effectively derailed the morning’s schedule, although now the intercom clicked on and the haggard voice of an administrative secretary informed the student body that classes would resume as normal in five minutes.

In response to Ian’s question, Mandy could only shrug. “Dunno. My spider-sense is tingling,” she added mockingly, employing a phrase she’d picked up years ago during Mickey’s brief but passionate obsession with the Spider-Man cartoon.

“Okay,” Ian said with a sigh. He uncrossed his legs and stood up, then offered a hand to Mandy to help her do the same. “Let’s go.”

She accepted the assistance, automatically adjusting her short denim skirt once she was on her feet. “Ian—”

“Hey,” he interrupted, predicting her objection, “if you get to play hooky, I get to play hooky.”

“Fine,” Mandy caved instantly, realizing she actually didn’t give a fuck. “But if your sister gets a truancy call, you better leave my name out of it. She’s fucking scary.”

Ian laughed. “This from the girl who fights vampires for a living.”

“Hey, you know it’s true,” Mandy insisted. “I’d take vampires over Fiona Gallagher any day.”

“Fair enough,” Ian conceded, “I accept your conditions. Now let’s get out of here.”

* * *

For some reason Ian wanted to track down Mickey first, but Mandy insisted on getting to the Jacksons' ASAP.

“You can meet up with your dealer later,” she told him, using all her willpower to avoid lecturing him on the stupidity of using in the first place. “We gotta check in with Sheila first and figure out where to go from here.”

“Okay,” said Ian. He paused for a moment like he was working up to something, then added, “Mickey’s not my dealer, you know.”

Yeah, okay.

“It’s fine,” Mandy lied. “I don’t give a shit. Just don’t fuck up, okay?”

Any further discussion was preempted as they walked under the L tracks and approached the Jackson house. With darkened windows and drawn curtains it looked lifeless as ever, but Mandy knew better. She and Ian stepped up to the door and removed their shoes on the landing, familiar with the routine by now. The formality of knocking had also been dispensed with at some point: they simply let themselves in, Mandy announcing their presence with a bellowing, “Honey, I’m home!”

“Mandy?” called Sheila from the kitchen. She walked around the island to greet them, still wearing a ruffle-trimmed apron over her pale green, vintage-style cocktail dress, brow furrowed in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Kid overdosed at school today,” Ian explained.

“So?” asked Karen as she came bouncing down the stairs, presumably from her bedroom. “That’s gotta be like a daily occurrence, right?”

Mandy suddenly found herself wondering exactly how much “homeschooling” occurred at the Jacksons’, and what else Karen did by herself all day, every day. It had to be pretty fucking lonely, to say the least.

“Actually, I think it might be a first,” she replied. “Cokeheads aren’t exactly known for their attendance records.”

“So what does this have to do with us, exactly?” Sheila wondered, eyes wide and expectant.

“You guys were just looking for an excuse to ditch, weren’t you?” said Karen with a smirk.

“No. Well, sort of,” Mandy admitted. “But something about it feels... off.”

“Her spider-sense is tingling,” Ian added jokingly.

“Hey, don’t mock,” Karen scolded him. “The slayer hunch is a well-documented phenomenon, not to be ignored.”

“See?” Mandy told Ian triumphantly.

“Yeah, alright. We still haven’t confirmed anything, though, so maybe you should hold off on the gloating,” he said.

Mandy knew she was right, could feel it in her bones, but decided that proving it would be much more productive than continuing to argue about it. “We gotta find out what happened to that kid.”

“Okay,” said Ian, “how do we do that?”

The others remained totally silent; in the kitchen a high-pitched whistle indicated that a kettle had come to a boil.

“Tea, anyone?” Sheila asked brightly.

They migrated from the entryway to the dining room table. The change in venue didn’t change how badly the brainstorming session was going, but it did have the added benefit of hot tea. (Mandy was surprised at how quickly she’d acquired a taste for it once she started hanging out at Sheila’s regularly: personality-wise it was one of the bigger changes she’d undergone since the start of her slaying career.)

“Isn’t there like, some spell you can do to figure out the cause of death?” asked Mandy.

Sheila shrugged hesitantly. “Probably,” she said. “Chances are it would require access to the body, so if you’re up for breaking into the morgue…”

Mandy shuddered, the memory of the body on the stretcher still fresh in her mind. “Pass,” she said.

“There has to be an autopsy report or something, right?” Ian reasoned. “Couldn’t we hack the hospital network and find it?”

Karen snorted. “Sure, be my guest, Angelina Jolie.”

“Wait, aren’t you good at that kind of thing?” Ian asked, frowning in confusion.

“I know how to google shit,” she corrected him, “I’m not like some kind of hacker genius.”

Mandy sighed. “Off to the morgue it is.”

“Hey, wait,” said Ian. “I might have a good idea.”

* * *

“This is such a bad idea,” Mandy said as she and Ian walked into Gallagher house later that afternoon, entering through the back door with Karen’s laptop in tow (when Ian had wondered why Karen herself wasn’t coming along she'd come down with a sudden and severe stomach flu and disappeared up to her bedroom).

“No it’s not,” Ian insisted, “we just have to stick to the story.”

The house was chaotic as usual; Mandy had only been over a handful of times for that very reason. Preteen Debbie, the only other redhead in the family, sat at the kitchen table trying and failing to keep baby Liam entertained in his high chair with a collection of alphabet blocks, while back in the living room Ian’s younger, wilder brother Carl seemed to be engaged in some extremely questionable and dangerous undertaking involving action figures and a blowtorch.

“Has anyone seen my uniform?” demanded Fiona, the de facto head of household, blowing into the kitchen from upstairs like a hurricane. “I’m supposed to be at work in like twenty minutes,” she elaborated as she desperately raided the dryer.

“Haven’t seen it,” Ian told her, taking the whole scene in stride while Mandy could only stand and gape. “Lip home?”

“Upstairs, I think,” Fiona said distractedly. “Shit!” She added, pulling a dripping wet green-and-white housekeeper’s uniform from the washing machine. “Debbie, didn’t I ask you to switch the laundry like an hour ago?”

“Oops, I forgot,” Debbie replied, wholly unconcerned with Fiona’s crisis as she picked up one of Liam’s blocks from the floor and returned it to him. “Sorry.”

“Fuck,” Fiona sighed.

And that finally caught Debbie’s attention. “You owe a quarter to the swear jar,” she pointed out.

“But it wasn’t my fault,” Fiona protested. “You pay the swear jar.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Okay, well fuck that,” said Fiona, sizing up her hopelessly soaked uniform. She tried in vain to wring it out, only squeezing a few drops of water onto the linoleum floor. “Maybe it’ll dry out on the bus,” she reasoned.

“I’ll put in an IOU for you,” Debbie said, refusing to let the swear jar issue drop.

At this point Ian and Many made their way upstairs, so if there was more to the exchange Mandy didn’t hear it. The door to the boys’ room was shut tight, and easily identifiable by the conglomeration of band, movie, and military posters, along with several disturbingly violent crayon drawings that had to have been added by Carl.

“You better not be jacking off in here,” Ian said as he pushed the door open without bothering to knock.

“Hey,” said Lip, sprawled out on the top bunk with a thick book lying open on his chest. “What if I was?”

“Then stop,” Ian replied matter-of-factly. “We’ve got company.”

“Oh, hey Mandy,” lip said as she stepped into the small bedroom. “You guys got a study date or something?”

Ian sighed; Mandy could almost see him swallowing his pride as he prepared to ask for the favor. “Actually, we kind of need your help.”

* * *

“You know, as your big brother it’s my job to tell you not to fuck around with this kind of shit,” Lip said, sitting on Ian’s twin bed with the laptop balancing on his knees, Ian and Mandy on either side so they could see the screen.

Miraculously he’d accepted or at least pretended to accept, their vague story about buying from the dead kid and wanting to make sure they hadn’t gotten bad shit; at Sheila’s insistence they left out any hint of a supernatural element.

“Which part," wondered Mandy, "the drugs or the computer hacking?” 

“Valid question,” said Lip, continuing to type without missing a beat. “Both, I guess.”

Ian, meanwhile, was acting increasingly strange, checking his phone at least once a minute and constantly fidgeting.

“You gotta take a piss or something?” Lip finally asked him.

“What? No,” Ian replied. 

“Okay, well knock it off,” said Lip. “You’re distracting me, and this is fucking sensitive work.”

“Sorry.” Ian stilled himself and the room was suddenly calm and silent, aside from the steady clicks of the keyboard.

But it was only a moment before Ian’s phone started to buzz, spoiling the moment. “Hey, you guys got this under control, right?” he asked. “I uh, think I left something at Sheila’s, I gotta go pick it up.”

“Who the fuck is Sheila?” wondered Lip. “Are you talking about Batty Sheila? Jackson?”

Ian’s eyes went wide; Mandy couldn’t help but give him a “what the fuck are you talking about?” look.

“Nope,” said Ian. “Different Sheila. English tutor,” he supplied.

“Since when?” asked Lip.

“Um…”

Lip sighed, already losing interest. “Whatever. It’s fine, get the fuck out of here.”

“K,” said Ian, hopping off the bed and donning his jacket. “Be back soon, have fun!”

And then he was gone, leaving Mandy alone in the room with Lip.

“So…” Lip began after a long, awkward silence.

“Hit on me and I’ll fucking murder you,” Mandy told him firmly. “I’m serious.”

“Okay,” said Lip, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. “I’m almost done anyway.”

“If you say so,” Mandy replied. The lines of code on the screen, indecipherable to her, looked no different than they had at the start of the process, but she was willing to take his word for it. Sure enough, a few keystrokes later a new window popped up that actually resembled a regular, if extremely basic website. The top of the page bore the helpful heading “Mercy Hospital Morgue Records,” so Mandy felt pretty confident that they were in the right place.

“See?” said Lip, allowing himself a cocky smile. “No sweat.”

A few more clicks and they were looking at the daily autopsy reports, a two-column list of fifty or so links labeled only with six-digit numerical IDs.

“Try that one,” Mandy suggested, pointing to a record at random, and Lip clicked the link.

“Jane Doe,” Lip read from the top of the page, “48-year-old African American female.”

“Nope,” Mandy said with certainty.

Lip tried again, clicking on the next link. “Daniel Mendez, 17-year-old Latino male. Was this kid Mexican?” he asked.

“Didn’t look like it, but maybe.”

He continued to read the report. “Cause of death: leukemia. So I’m gonna guess that’s a no.”

Mandy sighed, suddenly realizing that this might not be as easy as she thought.

“Okay, here we go,” said Lip pressing on to the next entry. “Flynn Roberts, 16-year-old Caucasian male.”

“Yeah, that name sounds familiar,” Mandy confirmed. “That’s gotta be him.”

“Five-eleven, 142 pounds. Toxicology is…” he trailed off.

“What?” Mandy prompted, fearing that her hunch was about to be proved wrong. Maybe there was a simple, logical explanation after all: nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

“Clean,” Lip said in surprise. “Cause of death: unknown.”  

* * *

It was still early in the evening when Mandy walked home, but the streetlamps and houses were already casting long shadows in the orange glow of the setting sun, just one more sign of the slow but inevitable march toward winter. Karen’s laptop was still tucked under her arm; the task of returning it now seemed overwhelming, so she’d texted Karen to make sure it was okay to wait.

 _Yeah,_ Karen replied. _Just don’t look at my porn._

Followed immediately by a second message: _Just kidding. You can if you want._

Mandy waited as long as she could to reply, hoping Karen would give her more to go on but that was it, not even a fucking emoji to give her a hint at how to interpret any of this.

 _K, thanks_ , she finally answered, playing it as safe as possible. She was at a total loss when it came to Karen: was she just fucking with her? Playing for laughs? Or was she actually—Mandy’s stomach did a little flip as she thought the word—flirting? Mandy had no clue.

Okay, well, it wasn’t so much that she didn’t have a clue as it was that her feelings and suspicions seemed so far removed from the realm of actual real-life possibility that they didn’t even seem worth considering.

And she really, really didn’t need another thing to worry about anyway, not with the mysterious dead kid that was almost definitely connected to this mystical bullshit she’d gotten wrapped up in.

More than anything Mandy was flat-out exhausted; as far as she could tell, these new slayer superpowers had done jack shit for her stamina.  So she resolved to get a full night’s sleep (patrol be damned—she’d already put in a full days’ work, and there was no overtime pay for this gig) and not think about vampires, or Flynn Roberts, or Karen fucking Jackson.

Climbing the steps to her house, Mandy felt like she was half-asleep already, which was why it took her several moments to process the scene that greeted her when she opened the front door. At first there was just a blur of pale skin, and then the image resolved into two naked bodies entangled on the living room sofa. She saw the flash of a reddish crew cut, and then a round ass cheek before finally bringing her arms up to shield her eyes from what was obviously a very intense sexual encounter.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, “what the hell?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it might be a little while before I get to the next chapter; I'm gonna be on vacation next week and also trying to get some stuff together for [femslash week](http://shamelessusfemslash.tumblr.com/post/93431372324/official-announcement-shameless-us-femslash) so yeah, sorry to end on a cliffhanger lol I didn't mean to!! PS if you've got any femslash week prompts feel free to [send some to me](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com) y/k whatever ;) 
> 
> *So far I've only watched the first episode so no spoilers plz!! But I'm kind of obsessed already omg


	8. South Side Special (Part Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gOD I had never even heard of [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA8AfQaUnXM) when I started writing this but the title's in the lyrics so I guess it's the official fic theme song now and I could not be happier about it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of bodies/corpses, generic drug-related discussion and a homophobic slur.

The pair separated so quickly it was like two magnets suddenly flipping polarity. In a rather acrobatic move, Ian sprang behind the couch to restore his decency, while Mickey crashed to the floor and frantically grabbed for the nearest object to cover himself, which happened to be a back issue of _Street Trucks_ magazine.

“Please tell me I did not just see my best friend riding my brother like something out of an amateur porno,” said Mandy.

“Amateur?” Ian repeated, instantly regaining his composure once he realized it was Mandy who’d walked in on them. “Whatever, that was at least, like, semi-pro.”

Mickey, on the other hand, was much less cool-headed about the situation. “Will you get the fuck out of here?” he asked, pleading as much with his eyebrows as with his words.

But Mandy had no such intentions, her initial shock hardening into a cold stone of betrayal in her stomach. She’d trusted both of them with her secret, but they’d kept this from her? For how long? Not that she didn’t understand to a certain degree: if her father found out, for starters, there would be hell to pay for Mickey, but he was still locked away, hopefully for several years to come.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, playing it cool to avoid revealing her true emotions. “I’m gonna need some answers here.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty fucking obvious, don’t you?” Mickey blustered. He’d somehow maneuvered back into his briefs while managing to keep the magazine strategically in place until he was no longer nude, which was a pretty impressive achievement.

“Mickey and I are fucking,” Ian confirmed, pulling up his jeans and zipping the fly.

“Uh-huh,” Mandy said neutrally. “And um, how long have you guys been boyfriends or whatever?”

She saw Mickey visibly tense at the b-word, but he said nothing. Ian, witnessing the same reaction, did his best to hide a smug smile, and Mandy started to get a picture of how this worked.

“Couple of months,” Ian said casually in response to her question.

Suddenly Mandy saw all of the pair’s odd behavior and random meetings in an entirely new light, and the whole thing seemed way too fucking obvious. At least she could be grateful that slayerdom mainly required stabbing things with point sticks rather than solving mysteries… present case excluded, of course.

“So… you’re not dealing to him, are you?” Mandy asked her brother to verify.

“Who, this punk?” Mickey said, suddenly cocky again now that he was fully clothed. “Nah.”

“Jesus,” Mandy said, not sure if she was more baffled at her own ignorance or at their decision to keep her out of the loop. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ian shrugged. “Mickey’s not out, obviously. Not my place to tell.”

Mandy turned to her brother, who immediately stiffened into a defensive posture.

“You know what Dad’s like,” Mickey said. “I’d be dead if he knew.” His brow furrowed into an expression of genuine worry; Mandy knew he was right and could only imagine how heavily this had been weighing on him. “Look, just please don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Yeah,” Mandy assured him. “Of course not.”

* * *

_Oh my god_ , Mandy typed, pulling out her phone as soon as she got to her room. As she relayed an abridged version of the story a small voice at the back of her mind told her she definitely shouldn’t be doing this, but she shoved the voice away and hit “send.”

Karen’s response was almost immediate: _What?!_

_I KNOW. well I guess they’re actually dating? IDK_

_weird, I always thought that ginger dipshit had the hots for you_

Mandy actually laughed out loud at that before typing her reply. _OMG no. Just friends._ She reflected for a moment, then started a new message. _well we were friends , can’t believe he didn’t tell me_

There was a longer pause this time, but Karen finally responded. _maybe he was just looking out for his bf?_

_LOL I thought you hated Ian_

_IDK I like him a lot more now that I know he’s not the competition_

Mandy frowned at the message, confused. _competition for…?_

_you, dumbass_ ;)

She had no idea how to respond but knew she had to send something, and so resorted to the one expression that had never failed her yet: _fuck off_

* * *

Mandy’s original plan had been to head directly for bed and sleep through till morning, but now she found herself way too wired for that. And also kind of hungry.

She ventured out to the kitchen and saw that Iggy and Colin had arrived home from doing god knows what—she wondered how they would have reacted to walking in on the scene she’d discovered, and decided that Ian and Mickey were pretty lucky, all things considered—and were seated at the table with beers in hand, having a heated three-way argument with Mickey.

“No fucking way,” Mickey said, face red with passion. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

“Are you kidding me?” Colin exclaimed. “Ghosts is way better than CoD 2, obviously.”

Iggy shook his head. “Maybe, _maybe_ in multiplayer,” he allowed. “But Black Ops 2 is the ultimate, hands down.”

“Bullshit,” Mickey replied. “I’ve got two words for you dumbasses—”

What exactly those two words were remained a mystery; Mickey stopped short when he noticed Mandy’s presence. He eyed her nervously and Mandy wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or punch something. What did he expect her to do, blurt out, “Hey guys, guess what? Mickey’s a big ol’ mo!” to the room at large?

But instead she simply went about her business, rummaging through the cupboards for something quick and easy to eat and finally settling on a package of instant noodles. “Anyone want some?” she asked. Three hands shot up immediately; Mandy sighed and reached up to the shelf for another package.

* * *

Once Iggy and Colin were passed out in the living room among empty beer bottles, with “Game Over” flashing on the TV screen in an endless loop, Mandy told Mickey what she’d discovered so far.

“My hunch says that it’s some kind of dope,” she said.

“But you said the tox report was clean, right?” asked Mickey.

“Yeah, I dunno. It’s gotta be some kind of mystical bullshit, something untraceable. But we’re kind of at a dead end. No pun intended.”

“Well, if you’re sure it’s drugs, you gotta figure out where the dead kid was getting his stuff, right?” Mickey said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Mandy blinked, surprised at the insight in his reply. Following the chain of supply definitely made sense if they were going to find out who/what was at the bottom of this. “I guess. You gonna help?”

“Does helping involve going to school?”

“Probably.”

Mickey sighed, obviously experiencing a serious internal conflict. “Shit. I was about to break my own truancy record, you know.”

“You’re a real hero, Mick,” she told him, finishing the last swig of her now unpleasantly warm beer with a grimace. “Listen, about you and Ian—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he cut her off, abruptly standing and stalking off to his bedroom, while Mandy was left alone with her thoughts.

* * *

“Well, well, well,” Ian said smugly as he spotted Mandy and Mickey walking across the school courtyard to meet him before class. “Look who decided to make the most of his education today.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey replied. “I’m just here to help out you two dumbasses.”

Mandy bristled at the implication, feeling more than capable of taking on the task herself. “Look, if you’re gonna be an asshole about it, you can just fuck off.”

“I’m not being an asshole about it,” Mickey insisted, turning to Ian for backup. “Am I being an asshole about it?”

“You kind of are,” Ian replied, earning himself a look from Mickey that all but screamed “I’ll get you for that later.”

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Mandy said to return focus to the objective at hand. “Find out whatever you can about Flynn Roberts—”

“Wait, who?” Ian interrupted.

“The dead kid, numbnuts,” Mickey filled him in.

“…and any new drugs that might be going around,” Mandy continued. “But play it cool, alright? No stirring up shit.” She looked pointedly at Mickey, and he raised his eyebrows in an expression of pure innocence. “We’ll all meet up at Sheila’s at the end of the day,” she finished, and the three of them parted ways again.

* * *

“Sucks about that dead kid, huh?” Mandy said offhandedly to her English class discussion partner, a somewhat reserved, curly-haired girl whose name she couldn’t remember.

“Yeah, both of them,” the girl said, then let out a wistful sigh. “Star-crossed lovers. So romantic.”

“What? Oh,” said Mandy, remembering that they were supposed to be talking about _Romeo and Juliet_. “No, I meant that guy they found in the bathroom yesterday, Flynn Roberts?”

“Oh yeah. Creepy.”

Mandy suspected that she knew the answer to her next question, but decided to ask anyway just to be thorough. “So did you know him or anything?”

The girl shook her head, and then turned her attention back to the questions scrawled on the chalkboard. “Hey, you don’t know what that question means by ‘dramatic irony,’ do you?”

* * *

Mandy made a few more inquiries about Flynn, and a few about illicit substances, and was coming up empty on both fronts. Someone had offered to sell her a dime bag and she was sorely tempted to take him up on it, but in the end her code of ethics won out.

Well, that and the fact that she was completely fucking broke, but still.

Exhaustion caught up with her during a mid-afternoon bathroom break; she was bent over the sink splashing cold water on her face when the sound of an unfamiliar voice startled her upright.

“Rough day?”

Mandy looked up and saw a girl with blue-streaked blonde hair and a black hoodie looking at her in bemusement. “Yeah,” she admitted. She definitely recognized the girl—Amy something, maybe?—and hoped she was remembering her correctly as someone with a hookup. “I could definitely use something to take the edge off, you know?” she ventured.

Amy smirked, which pretty much confirmed Mandy’s suspicion. “Yeah, I think I do.” She held out her hand to reveal a single tiny pill, yellow and round but otherwise totally nondescript.

“What is it?”  Mandy asked.

Amy smiled again and Mandy wished she’d stop; it was getting kind of creepy. “It’s a magic trip, babe.”

After a moment’s hesitation Mandy grabbed the pill and mimed swallowing it, but secretly palmed the small tab.

“Come find me when you want more,” Amy said.

“Where’d you get it?”

The other girl raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness as she backed out of the bathroom. “Can’t say. Sorry.”

* * *

Mandy was the first to arrive at the Jackson house after school, and was discussing her findings with Karen and Sheila when the boys suddenly came bursting through the front door.

“What the fuck happened to you?” she asked Mickey, who was trying hard not to act bothered by the fresh shiner under his left eye. “I thought I said to play it cool.”

“I did,” Mickey insisted. “The other guy, not so much.”

Sheila had instantly snapped into mother hen mode, hurrying back from the kitchen with a bag of frozen peas.  “Here,” she said, handing them to Mickey as he plopped down on the sofa.

“Thanks,” said Mickey, and applied them directly to his eye.

“Were you there when this happened?” Mandy asked Ian.

“Yeah, it was just some jerk,” Ian confirmed. “We were asking around like you said, and then out of nowhere, wham,” he finished, dramatically punching the air to demonstrate.

“Uh-huh,” Mandy replied skeptically.  “Totally unprovoked, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Mickey chimed in. “Actually, it was that guy, shit… the creep who used to stalk you?’

“Kyle Grady?”

“Whatever his fucking name was, I don’t know,” Mickey said. “The point is, he’s a total asshole.”

He was pretty much right about that; it certainly wouldn’t be out of character for Kyle to punch someone for no real reason,  so Mandy decided to let the subject drop for the time being.

“So,” said Karen, bringing the conversation back to the issue at hand, “other than picking fights, did either of you do anything productive today?”

“I got an address,” said Ian as he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his coat pocket. “This kid I talked to said she used to see Flynn hanging out at this convenience store a lot.”

“And a girl in the bathroom gave me this,” Mandy repeated for Ian and Mickey’s benefit, holding up the pill she’d received. “They’ve gotta be connected, right? Maybe this shop is a front for the supplier or something. We should go check it out.”

“I’ll test this for mystical components,” Sheila volunteered, “but we’ll have to use it carefully. It’s a shame you couldn’t get more.”

Mandy shrugged. “Well, I can, but it’ll cost. And unless you want to front the cash…”

Sheila sighed. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

There was a general sense that the informal meeting was about to adjourn, but then Karen spoke up again. “While we’re all sitting here, I just wanted to remind everyone that this house is a safe space,” she said, looking directly at Ian and Mickey. “So if anyone ever needs to talk about anything, no judgment here.”

Suddenly it was like all the air had gone out of the room and been replaced with a thick cloud of tension. Mandy froze, unsure whether she felt more like flying across the room to deck Karen or shrinking up and collapsing in on herself entirely.

“You told her?” Ian asked Mandy with an accusing scowl.

Well shit, no point in denying it now. “Sorry,” said Mandy. “I couldn’t help it. Besides, who’s she gonna tell?”

“That’s not the point,” Ian said, “and also, you could have helped it. You just decided not to.” His initial anger was transforming gradually into disappointment, which to Mandy seemed even worse.

“Anyone who says a word about this is fucking dead,” Mickey added, looking miserable and deflated with his makeshift ice pack and darkening bruise.

“I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here,” Sheila said tentatively, “But Karen, it’s time for your dose.”

“No thank you,” said Karen.

“What?” Sheila replied. “Honey, you can’t skip—”

“I think it’s time that they know,” Karen interrupted. “I mean, I can’t hide it forever, right?”

The room lapsed back into a tense, uncertain silence. Mandy had a pretty good idea what Karen was referring to, but no clue what she had up her sleeve at this particular moment.

“So… what exactly is happening right now?” Ian finally asked.

“Just wait,” said Karen, sitting calmly in her armchair. “You’ll see.”

A moment later Mickey sighed impatiently and stood up, dropping his bag of peas onto the coffee table. “This is bullshit,” he said. “I’m outta here.”

As he started to put on his coat Karen suddenly gasped, and everyone froze to watch as her spine stiffened and eyelids squeezed shut like she was in enormous pain. When she opened her eyes again there was a black film swirling around the irises, giving her appearance an unsettling effect.

“What the fuck?” said Mickey, his voice jumping up a register in distress.

“What?” Karen said, now seeming completely relaxed—actually, maybe a little too relaxed. “I’m fine. Just… thirsty,” she finished, eyeing Mandy strangely. Then her expression changed again, brows knit as she appeared to be suffering once more. “So thirsty,” she managed to gasp out, “why…?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sheila said firmly, retreating to the kitchen and returning hastily with a short tumbler filled with some sort of brownish liquid.

She tried offering it to her daughter but Karen seemed completely obvious to her mother’s presence, eyes cloudy and unfocused, hands clenched into tight fists on her lap. So Sheila held the glass up to Karen’s mouth, and Mandy couldn’t be 100% certain but she thought she saw a flash of unusually sharp, pointed teeth as her lips touched the rim.

At this point Karen drank the liquid eagerly, draining the glass in a matter of seconds. She closed her eyes again for a long time but no one spoke or moved a muscle except for Sheila, who went back to the kitchen and began washing dishes.  When Karen’s eyes finally opened they looked clear, and everything appeared to be back to normal.

“What the hell was that?” asked Mickey.

“That,” Karen said wearily, “was my vampire side starting to come out,” she explained. “If I don’t take a dose of that shit every eight hours, I’ll go full vamp on you in no time. As you saw.”

“Wait, so are you saying you’re part vampire?” asked Ian, ever the skeptic.

“Yep, that’s basically it,” Karen confirmed. “I mean, if you don’t believe me, we can just wait another eight hours. And then I can bite you.”

“Um, that’s okay,” said Ian.

“Shit,” was all Mandy could add, feeling her brain short out at the image of her friend as one of the things she was hardwired to destroy.

Karen, having no idea of the internal conflict Mandy was wrestling with, simply smirked at the comment. “So now you all know my secret, and I know yours,” she said to Ian and Mickey. “Can we call it even?”

Ian rubbed his face in exasperation. “Whatever. Fine,” he said, to Mandy’s surprise.

Karen smiled in pleasure, like the whole thing was some plan she’d orchestrated from the beginning. “Good. Doesn’t it feel better to have everything out in the open?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it's been a ridiculously long time but thank you for being patient and sticking with me! Hope you're still enjoying XOXO- Kelsey/[gallagherfamilyreunion](http://gallagherfamilyreunion.tumblr.com)


End file.
